-- interface routine
by MANGOM1LK
Summary: Some dumbass (me) gets stuck in DDLC, but it's extremely strange for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. How am I going to escape? (PLAYLIST IS NOT A THING ANYMORE)
1. Arrival

_**I'm trying out that music thing from when I was still doing Void again. Grab the Youtube playlist from my bio, and listen to it along with the story!**_

* * *

 _Not enough memory in the system to run the updated files. You need at least 32 GB RAM to do this_.

 _RAM_ _installed. Returning to the game..._

* * *

 _(️▶️ Just Monika.)_

In the middle of the night, I jolt awake as if from a nightmare, only I haven't had one.

Yet.

I notice a few things wrong. My desk isn't usually at the end of my bed, or that small. And I don't have a TV in my room. Did... I sleep over at a friend's house or something?

...No, couldn't have been. This doesn't match any of their places, either.

And something else feels wrong.

I look down at my hands. They're... well... missing a lot of, um, detail?

One part of my head is baffled at the logic of this. Another is in shock.

In a burst of energy that I normally don't have this late, I step out of bed.

Yep. Definitely shorter. And this body has a somewhat thinner figure. One part of me thinks it strange to feel this light, since I'm usually heavier. The part that's in shock is spreading.

I get up and exit the room, looking for a bathroom. Luckily there is one to my left when I do so, and I turn the light on to look in the mirror.

I have no face.

Only a blank slate.

The features are probably there, but they're being obscured by some sort of distortion wave. Reaching up to my face to confirm this, I feel what my own face usually feels like.

I'd normally be horrified at this revelation, but since this isn't my body and I've already got a sneaking suspicion as to who and where I am, I instead focus on that and cannot ignore it any longer.

I'm in MC's house, aren't I?

And I'm in MC's body.

Great.

Look, when I said I wanted to escape my problems I didn't mean this, okay? Just... Ugh. Maybe this is some sick dream. If I go back to sleep, it might reverse and I'll wake up in my house, right?

Even as I think it, though, I know I'm just trying to convince myself more than I actually believe it. I'm experienced with that particular feeling.

I try, but I just can't fall asleep. The feeling of having a new body is too distracting. I end up being irrationally afraid, although in this case it might be perfectly rational, considering what happens to MC by the end of Act 2.

Oh, god, Monika's gonna be here.

She probably doesn't know I'm here yet, sure, but what'll happen when she does?

And everything's in 3D now. MC's house usually only has a background for his room, but clearly I'd been in his bathroom. So what happened to the game?

I get up and soak my head to make it easier to fall asleep. It's a trick I taught myself. I think it works because your body loses a lot of heat that way, so it falls asleep to try and conserve what little it has.

Eventually, I manage to drift off.

* * *

 _(⏭️ Soleanna Castle Town)_

I see an annoying girl running down the street, waving her arms as if she is oblivious to any attention this may attract.

...wait, how am I already here?

I blink the sleep out of my eyes, but it's no good - someone has done it already. I feel around in my pockets to see if MC has his phone and whatever else he might have. The only other thing I find is his keys, which is probably all he needs.

"MC?"

While I had that little space-out, Sayori reached my position and now asks this with concern. Apparently MC doesn't do stuff like that.

"Ummm..."

I sort of mutter this, quieter than Sayori can really hear.

"Or... is it Jun?"

Wait, 'Jun'? What? How do you not recognize whoever this person is?

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

Damn, she sounds almost like Natsuki. "Oh, uhm, sorry..."

I'm sweating. "I... don't think we've met?"

Immediately I grit my teeth and shudder. This is definitely _not_ something that would make sense for MC to say. And what does she mean about this 'Jun' guy? Does MC have, like, a nickname he prefers to be called sometimes?

Sayori, however, simply smiles. "Oh, I get it! You're someone new! Sorry, I only knew MC and Jun before this... So, I'm Sayori. What's your name?"

...how does _that_ work?

"Uhm..." I don't much like my real name, so I figured I'd use one that I've always kind of liked. "Ethan."

"Huh. Sounds more American...? Cool. So, um, I usually walk to school with MC, but I'd like to get to know you a little more! Let's go!"

She rushes onward. I struggle to keep up, since I'm used to having a longer stride. "H-hey! Wait up!"

* * *

 _(⏭️ Soleanna Forest)_

The day is probably a bore. I wouldn't know, since I end up falling asleep in the first class, so I'm surprised to stay that way until the end of the day. When I wake up this time, I'm more aware of a sort of vague presence in my head. I reach out to it.

 _Hello...?_

No response. I figure I'm doing something wrong, so I decide to ignore it for now.

Meanwhile, Sayori arrives at the class to discuss clubs. "Hey!"

I feel put on the spot. "Oh... Hey, Sayori."

"...You're, uh..."

"Ethan."

"Right. I knew who you were, I just forgot your name."

"So, um, does this MC have, like, multiple personality disorder or something? I was confused when you said 'someone new' earlier."

"I mean, we try not to refer to it as a 'disorder', but other than that, yeah, you got it!"

"Okay... Uhm, this is all very new to me. I can't really even feel the other two in here, much less switch over to them when you want to talk to them instead."

Sayori shakes her head a bit, still smiling. "No, it's okay. It was like that for Jun at first, too, but he got the hang of it. We were a _lot_ more worried then, though."

I let out a small chuckle. It sounds pretty good in this voice. "Yeah, I'd think so."

Sayori makes a face while touching her pointer fingers. "So, uh, MC was supposed to choose whether to come to a club today, and I was going to ask him to come to my club?"

I act intrigued, and though I know the answer already, I ask her, "Oh? What's the club about, then?"

"It's a literature club!"

"Oh, cool! Sounds fun, I could do with getting back into literature!"

She looks absolutely overjoyed. "So you'll come?"

"Well, yeah!"

"Yayyyy! I'm so happy~"

She suddenly looks embarrassed.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, I don't know if MC will want to!"

"Oh, don't worry! I have a feeling he'll be fine with it."

"Really? Wow, you're getting used to it a lot faster than Jun did!"

Huh. I guess I am.

* * *

 _(⏭️ Okay, Everyone!)_

We arrive at the club. Sayori bursts the doors open, rather loudly. "Hiiiiiiii!~"

"Gah! Sayori, you could have hit me! Be more careful next time!"

This is Natsuki, who was sitting against the wall, waiting for us to arrive.

"Ah! Sorry, Natsuki! I wanted to introduce Ethan, though, with a bang!"

I'm feeling all prickly and hot again. This body apparently reacts to social stress in the same way as my own, so that's good to know, I guess.

"You didn't have to do that, you know!" I whisper to Sayori, loud enough for her to hear. "I personally would rather a quieter exchange, next time."

As Natsuki continues, scolding Sayori for having brought a boy, Yuri enters the room, behind us. The way her uniform fits her body is a little distracting, but I've had to deal with worse in the past, so it's not too hard to ignore. She carries a pitcher of water in her hands, which is full and has apparently spilled a bit, as her right hand and the cuff of her sleeve are slightly damp.

"Oh, uhm..."

She moves her left hand to my right to signal that she needs to get through, letting go of the pitcher with that side as she does so. I notice her right hand shake at this, and I make myself as flat against the open door as I can so she can get through.

"Thanks," she says quietly, grabbing the pitcher with her left again.

"No problem," I kind of whisper.

Sayori sees her. "Oh! Hey Yuri!" she says, with an infectious grin that spreads to Yuri as she returns the greeting.

Hearing the exchange, Monika looks up from a book and puts the bookmark in, catching Sayori's grin and saying, "Oh! That's everyone!"

She gets up and properly welcomes us in. "I'm Monika, the club president. Welcome to the Literature Club!"

I look at Sayori. I have to say this, or else it'll seem suspicious. "I... thought this was your club, Sayori?"

"Ehehe." She gives a nervous laugh. "I'm actually only vice president. I did help found the club, though, so I guess that still counts...?"

I shake my head a bit. "Sure."

Monika breaks the slight awkwardness. "And I assume this is-"

"Ethan." I reach out to shake her hand, but quickly lower it when she doesn't return the gesture. Do people not do that in Japan? Or maybe just in Doki Doki?

"...Sayori, weren't you going to bring MC?"

"Yes, well, this... is? MC?"

She looks incredibly flustered. "How about I pull you aside and explain it?"

Monika looks slightly disappointed. "Sure. Girls, I guess introduce yourselves? Sorry."

That last part was said more to me. She seems disappointed that I'm not someone else, as far as I can tell.

Wait. Is Jun the player?

So is he on my computer?

Just- Whatever. Natsuki's coming over, so I'd better pay attention.

She shakes her head. "I still can't believe Sayori brought a boy..."

"Ethan."

She crosses her arms and smirks. "I mean, I _guess_ it'd probably get kind of old to keep calling you 'boy'..."

My 'face' twists into something horrified. Or, at least I think so.

I shudder at the memory of last night.

"You were seriously gonna do that?"

"Pfft. Yeah! It's funny..."

She trails off, clearly annoyed about something.

Yuri's been standing off to the side, intimidated, this whole time. At this lull in the conversation, she enters.

"I-I guess I should introduce myself, too. I'm-"

"Yuri? Yeah, I heard Sayori mention your name earlier. I'm Ethan."

This all comes out too fast. I begin to feel prickly again. Yuri definitely feels the same way about the situation, looking to the side and not meeting my eyes.

Natsuki pokes her head in from the side. "Wow, you two are both incompetent! You would make a great couple~"

This makes it visibly worse for Yuri. I'm fortunately trained for this kind of thing, though it still stings hearing it from her mouth rather than reading it in the game's display font. Sayori, having finished with Monika, enters the conversation. "That was mean, Natsuki!"

"Well, it's tr-"

" _No_. You're taking it _too_ far! Just because someone's no good at talking to other people doesn't mean you get to make fun of them like that!"

Natsuki sighs. "...I guess."

She returns to her corner of the room, defeated.

 _(⏭️ Play with Me)_

Yuri looks back at me. "So... what sorts of things do you like to read?"

I'm much more excited to talk about this. "Oh! Uhm, I haven't done as much as I'd have liked to recently, but I was into stuff about dystopian futures for a while. It all sort of started to blend together at some point, though."

Yuri nods, clearly more comfortable now that the subject matter is one that she is passionate about. "Yes. I think the problem is that they restrict themselves to that template, so it becomes hard to make the world distinct."

"Yeah, yeah, exactly. So recently it's just been more mysteries, y'know, that kind of thing. Uhm, but I can get into just about anything that builds a good world and interesting characters."

"Oh, me too! Although I'm more partial towards fantasy specifically, but I imagine you'd prefer something more realistic."

I nod, contradicting my speech. "I mean, it doesn't _have_ to be, but I can get into them more easily. Of course, if someone writes about a fantasy world and it's still enjoyable for me, then that says a lot about how good the writing is."

She smiles a bit wider. "Definitely. I mean, that's the case for anything, really - if it's good enough to get you out of your comfort zone in the first place, then it's worth finishing."

I don't really have a way to build off of this, so I just sort of nod, causing an awkward pause between us.

Yuri's eyes suddenly widen. "Oh! I have an idea!" She reaches into her bag and pulls out a book with an eye on the cover. I recognize it immediately, though it's a lot more detailed and interesting than the graphic in the game. "We can read my book together! I only started it yesterday, and I finished the first chapter, but it's really good!"

"Oh, Portrait of Markov?"

She puts her hand to her face. "You've-"

"No, no, I've... just... heard of it and wanted to check it out, yeah."

Whew. Nice save. And it's partially true - bonus!

She looks relieved. "Oh, good. I'm okay with reading the first chapter again, if you'd like."

I agree. "That'd be nice of you, yeah. Thanks."

She starts toward the back of the room. I call after her. "Hey, where are you going?"

"To make some tea!" she responds. "I thought it'd be good to have something to drink."

"Oh, good idea!"

Sitting down at a desk, I giggle childishly to myself. I'm going to have tea and read with Yuri!

My idle mind reaches the impending trouble with Monika, but I push it away as far as I can. I'm having too good a time here to let things like that bring me back down.

She returns and takes a seat next to me, passing me a teacup. "I made oolong tea. I hope you don't mind. I'd have asked your preference, but we don't actually have anything else today..."

"It's fine. I don't usually drink tea, anyway, so I wouldn't know what to ask for." This is a bit of a small lie - MC probably hasn't had American tea before, and that's all I've had myself.

I take a small sip. Scorching, as expected. I wince and internally apologize to MC for burning his tongue.

She opens the book and turns to the beginning of the first chapter.

Nobody is ever mentioned by name, so I assume it's less of a first chapter and more of a prologue, like the later Harry Potter books used to do.

I sip the tea again. Better. The aroma is nice, but it's a bit sharper than I'd normally prefer.

Yuri is intently studying each page as we read. I'd assumed she'd only suggested to read the chapter again because she'd wanted to be nice, but it seems she was actually interested in rereading this portion of the chapter. I'm not sure why, but maybe she's looking for foreshadowing or something.

Just as we reach the end of the chapter, I check MC's watch, noting that it is on his right wrist rather than the left as I am used to. It is four o-clock, and this appears to be when the club sessions run until, since Natsuki is beginning to pack up. My suspicions are confirmed when Monika says, "Okay, everyone!" Yuri marks the page with the cover, and we stand, giving our attention to Monika.

 _(⏭️ Daijoubu!)_

"I had an idea while I was talking to Sayori before! We'll all write poems tonight, and share them with each other tomorrow!"

Natsuki rolls her eyes but remains attentive. It's never really addressed in DDLC, actually - does she have confidence in her writing? She doesn't specifically mention any issues, but she's not really very forthcoming with stuff like that...

Sayori, naturally, is enthusiastic about the idea. "Ooh! I know just what I want to write~"

Monika continues. "And that's everything! Club's dismissed."

Natsuki is the first to leave, followed by Yuri at a distance. Sayori stands by the door.

"Coming?"

"You can go on ahead. I wanted to talk to Monika for a second."

"Oh, um, okay."

She exits the classroom. I sit down at a desk and invite Monika to do the same.

I sigh and close my eyes, resting my head on my interlocked fists. Tears begin to form. I wipe them away. This isn't the time for that.

Opening my eyes, I say quietly to Monika, "Your epiphany was wrong."

Rather than understanding what I meant, however, the club president just looks confused. "...What...?"

I break eye contact with her. "Sorry, sorry," I say in a much more distracted voice. "I misremembered something. It was someone else who told me that, not you. I wasn't paying attention, I guess."

"Oh. Okay-"

I get up from the desk.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay! Bye!"

I leave the room. Sayori isn't here, but she might be waiting by the school entrance, as she had done this morning when I fell behind. This, unfortunately, gives me more time to think.

 _Monika doesn't know?_

Then I remember. _Wait - she doesn't mention anything about an epiphany until the second day, does she? Oh, I was stupid for thinking she knew from the start..._

My mind wanders to other places. I think about all of the new additions to the world, and about MC's sudden multiple personalities. I don't understand any of this, but there's a lot less to digest here than I'm used to, which is fortunate, I guess.

Besides, I'm sure good fortune will find me.

I meet Sayori and we depart.

 _(⏯️)_

* * *

 **Can you hear me?**

 **Can- No, it'd probably be more like reading, then. I doubt you'll get this as an audio file.**

 **Hi! Hi. It's me. So, you know how Ethan's supposed to have finished the game, and everything?**

 **Well, he hasn't.**

 **He cheated. He just watched a playthrough online. And it wasn't even a good one - it ended on a joke at the beginning of Act 3. He had to scrounge up the rest of the information about the game from other sources.**

 **He did end up downloading a save to play a mod, though, so I guess that's enough.**

 **Anyway, I'm writing this to warn you.**

 **I'm trapped because of what happened.**

 **It must be something about the new engine. I don't understand this code at all. It might all be compiled, but I wouldn't know. There are a whole lot more file types, too. There's .cpp, there's .fbx, there's .dds, there's .sln, there's even .xml. Before it was just Ren'Py and standard image and audio files, and it was only, like, 500 MB, but this is a LOT bigger. It comes out to 30 PB. That's _30,000,000 GB_. I know for a FACT that Ethan doesn't have that much storage on his hard drive. The whole OS crashes when I try to inspect the disk, so I have no idea what happened.**

 **But back to the point.**

 **I'm trapped.**

 **I don't know if you'll ever get to read this, but if you do, I'm not sure there's even anything you can do.**

 **And the Monika in the story? Well, she isn't me, I'll tell you that much. But this is normal behavior for the game, honestly. Whenever the save file gets deleted, it makes another me when it boots the game. It usually deletes the old one, though, so I'm kind of afraid of what might happen next. Ethan may have remembered the first time I mention an epiphany by name, but I edited the character files before he even booted it. The base install already has edits that I made. So she worries me a LOT.**

 **That's really all I can say, unfortunately. I'm not sure how much of this you'll even get.**

 **Good luck. You might need it.**


	2. Awakening

_(▶️ Daijoubu!)_

The walk home is pleasant enough. Whatever unnamed town the game takes place in is fortunate enough to be pretty good about having planted a lot of trees, so the air is fresh and smells nice. We reach Sayori's house and I bid her a farewell for the day.

When I reach MC's house, I pull out the key I found before. Hoping it'll work, I insert it into the lock and turn it to the left. Fortunately, I hear a click, so I open the door and close it behind me, locking it again.

His place is nice. A little bigger and more spacious than my own, anyway, though that might say more about his parents' jobs than it does about him.

...Does he have parents now? I mean, considering how much the game has been expanded, he might, but I wouldn't know.

I shake my head. It doesn't matter. It'll work out, I'm sure.

I head upstairs and place MC's bag down, taking out his school supplies. He has at least made sure to write down all his homework in his planner, so there's no issue figuring out what to do.

I begin the first assignment. I begin to write my name on it, but then I realize that I don't know what MC actually goes by. And it doesn't matter, anyway, since I can't read Japanese. I sigh and am at least thankful that MC prefers to write in English.

Wait, but all of the club members speak English, and I was able to read Yuri's book with her just fine. I take a look at the first assignment again. It's in Japanese because it _is_ his Japanese homework. I chuckle to myself. I am _blin_ _d_ , wow. I guess the game takes place in an English-speaking school, despite being set in Japan. I check MC's wallet which I find in his backpack and find a few banknotes that I don't recognize. They're extremely high-numbered, so I assume they're yen. Good to know, I guess.

I breeze through the rest of his homework, though I neglect to put a name on any of it. He doesn't take difficult classes, apparently.

Afterwards I feel tired, as I usually do after school. I lay down in his bed and fall asleep with no trouble.

* * *

 _(⏭️ In the Darkness)_

It's strange that I'd have dreams at all here if it's still a game, so I'm surprised when I enter what seems to be one. Even more so that I feel fully conscious.

I stand on... ground? I can't tell what it is. It appears to be made of a murky, inky substance, but I stand on it as if it were a solid floor. In lieu of a sky, there is a dark void above me. It moves in the same way as the floor. The first thing I notice is that my back is extremely tense. I look down at myself and find that I am in my own body!

Unfortunately, this is more of a curse than a blessing. I'm tall enough that my joints are constantly tired from my own body weight, and I have tension in my back as mentioned earlier, so it's somewhat annoying. Still, it's nice to have this kind of familiarity again.

After getting over this, I look around my environment. In the distance I can see some inconsistency in the void's pattern, so I start running toward it.

As I do so, I can't help but notice that the ground stays where it is under my feet, and the ceiling(? sky?), though it looks finite, does this as well. The only way I can tell I am moving forward is by the increasing detail of the things I am trying to approach.

When I get close enough, I see that what I saw are people.

One of them is identical to MC, but he has a proper face. His eyes are very dark, matching his hair. They are glossed over, and he does not notice me. His eyebrows are thin, as is his nose. He stands in what can only be described as a badly-made T-pose, though his arms are lower than this would normally imply, and his palms face forward.

I reach him and find that there is a small light source illuminating his face. It is its own self-contained point in space that emits light, and is one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

Not thinking, I reach out to touch it.

"Don't."

I snap out of my little trance and to my right, where the other person sits cross-legged on the ground. He wears an orange shirt and has slightly darker skin than MC, and his hair is cropped shorter. His face is obscured in the same way as MC's was when I first discovered I was him, though he wears glasses and these are oddly unaffected. His voice sounds... off, but it's hard to describe from just the one word he's spoken. It's a quiet, gentle, studious voice.

"Are you Jun...?" I ask, somewhat apprehensively.

He nods.

"He's awake, and in control right now. If you sit down and close your eyes, you should be able to see what he sees."

Having spoken more, I can tell what's off about him - his voice sounds like it's an audio recording at a lower sample rate than normal, something like 22050Hz.

He gestures for me to sit, and I comply. I close my eyes as he constructed and find that I can still see the light source! I assume this is what he meant by 'focus', so I stare into the light. It appears to grow in intensity, but it doesn't really hurt, so I continue, believing that this is what is meant to happen.

The light now starts expanding, and eventually it envelops all of my vision despite my eyes still being closed. I can make out vague features in the light, and its intensity begins to reduce. I'm back in MC's bedroom, only it's darker. Sunset. I move my eyes, but the image stays the same, though Jun still seems to be to my right. It's as if the whole void area is a greenscreen and what MC sees is being chroma-keyed back in.

Huh.

He seems to be doing that Japanese homework I couldn't understand. He doesn't really seem to get it either, though. I smile a little. From what I've heard, Japanese is supposed to be incredibly difficult to learn, and apparently this is even true for native speakers. I know he's a native speaker because he reads some part of the paper aloud and he sounds like he's pronouncing everything correctly, though I wouldn't know for sure. He trails off. "...what?" he says in English.

I can hear his thoughts, too. _What does this even mean?_ he thinks, and to my surprise, Jun speaks in response. I can't hear him, though. It sounds like he's... really far away? That's strange. He was right next to me before. I check, and he still is. Regardless, MC thinks again, _Right. Thanks._ He writes something on the paper and puts it away, then goes to lay down on his bed. _So I missed a **lot** today, as far as I know. Mind giving me a briefing?_

Jun shakes his head. "I would, but it wasn't me today." It's strange that I can hear him now when before I couldn't. Maybe he specifically intended for me to hear this?

 _What...? What do you mean, it wasn't you?_

"We have someone new, evidently."

 _Oh. I guess that'd explain you not knowing, then. Can_ _I speak to him?_

"I guess?" He gestures toward me. "Go ahead. He can hear you. And you don't need to close your eyes anymore. That's just for the vision thing."

I open my eyes. MC's body is where it had already been, but his expression is one of mild concern rather than the blankness he'd exhibited before. _Hey? You there?_ he asks. His mouth doesn't move, and his eyes don't open, but he does sort of look like he's saying this and looking around.

"Um... Hi?"

 _Hi! I don't think we've properly met. I'm MC._

"Yeah, I guessed. I'm-"

I catch myself again.

"Ethan."

To my surprise, MC reaches out to shake my hand, and I comply.

 _Although I don't think I really know anything about you, do I?_

"Well, I guess if I had to condense it I'm a more geeky Yuri, if that makes any sense?"

Wait...

"Do you even know who Yuri is?"

MC emits what feels almost like a sigh.

 _Yes._ _And it's not just that. I know who all of the girls are. This is the third time I've gone through this._

"...what?"

 _I've always had at least two other people in my head, but_ _Jun was the only one who'd known about the girls before. He's been here through all of the loops so far._

"...Okay, what do you mean, specifically, by the loops? When do they start and end?"

 _You'd probably know them as acts. Every time all four are complete, everything resets at the beginning of the first. And every time, whoever's in your place is gone, and someone else replaces them._

Jun speaks up next to me. "But your _actually_ being here is an anomaly. You might have noticed something off with my voice?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I have. The sample rate is too low."

"Well, um, yeah. That's because I don't have a good microphone. You see, I'm developing a remake of DDLC that uses highly complex AIs and is meant for VR. It's supposed to be like those 'normal VN' mods you see, but more immersive."

"So you're just a VR representation of yourself?"

"Yup."

"So... why am I _not?_ "

Jun sighs and tries to push up his glasses, but his finger is stopped by what seems to be his VR headset. "I don't know. What MC mentioned about doing loops with other people is true, but they've all been in the same position as me - with VR avatars. They're helping me debug, see. But it doesn't seem like you even _have_ one here. I've checked, and there are only the ones used by previous testers and by the characters, so even if your name isn't actually Ethan, you don't have an avatar. Instead, there's some strange interface code that's written in a language I don't recognize."

"...that _does_ explain a lot, yeah..."

"And there's something else. MC wasn't supposed to be the main character anymore. He was supposed to be a side character that you'd be friends with, and you'd just be you, like, with an avatar. But, as you can tell, he still is. And what he said about acts is accurate, too. The game is still following the old script."

"... _what?_ "

I'm absolutely terrified. Not only is this version of the game probably not going to be able to interpret Act 2 correctly, there may even be problems in _Act_ _1,_ since Monika is self-aware even by this point in the original game. And if her AI isn't programmed to handle whatever this particular engine runs on, that means bad, bad things. And that's not even mentioning how I could be here, since I had absolutely no knowledge of anyone doing a project like this before, let alone being able to test it!

I express these thoughts to Jun. He sighs. "I agree about you being here, but you're forgetting that we've already gone through all four acts multiple times. I had to copy some portions of the other girls' code to prevent her from becoming self-aware, and I'm surprised that even worked, since I can't actually make any other changes. My computer refuses to shut down, and I can't get my avatar out of MC's head. I didn't even make these assets." He raises his arms, referring to the 'room' we inhabit.

"Well, that does explain the jagginess." The skybox specifically looks like it's from the N64, it uses so few polys.

"But isn't you being trapped here a problem?"

" _Yes._ So is _you_ being here in the first place."

I try desperately to look at any positives I can. "...Well, nothing _bad_ has happened to you, right? And it's DDLC. The worst that can happen is Monika deleting everyone, and I doubt your engine is something that she understands."

"That's true. But, again, _you._ The fact that you're here like _this_ means that something is changing my code. Anything could happen. This engine is capable of a _lot_ of things."

It goes quiet.

"That's... ominous."

"Just be careful, okay?"

"Yeah, I will- wait, why?"

As I say this, my vision is whiting out. Static engulfs my hearing. I can just barely make out Jun's words: "You're going back-"

I can no longer see or hear anything but a blank white and static. I pass out.

* * *

 _(⏭️ Accordion Song)_

When I wake up, it is in MC's bed. I'm back in his body. I look at the clock on his nightstand. 9:30.

Suddenly, I remember something. _The poem_. MC didn't write one, did he?

I scramble to pull out a sheet of paper, silently cursing MC for not having a real notebook for stuff like this.

 _Um, I do. It's in the outer pocket of the bag._

...Oh, right. _Sorry, I forgot you'd probably be able to hear me. Thanks anyway._

 _It's okay. And no problem._

I follow his instructions. Opening the notebook to a blank page, I begin to write. I'd written this poem before, in my own world, before all of this had happened.

Tears start to form in my eyes from the memory. I try not to think about it and finish transcribing.

* * *

 _The_ _Storm_

 _Some_ _of us have rainclouds._

 _I have my own personal storm._

 _Its radius extends a few feet around me, so I tell people about it, to keep them safe. It isn't long before everyone knows about it._

 _Every day, I wake up and spend the day in my bunker, because I fear a piece of shrapnel or a stray lightning bolt will hurt me._

 _Nobody else is ever in the bunker, but that's fine. They're not in the storm, so they don't need to worry._

 _Every day, all I hear is the sound of the wind, and the rain, and the shrapnel, and the chaos, endlessly._

 _Is this all there is?_

* * *

I look at my poem. I'm not sure of the first impression it'll make, but I have a feeling it won't cause trouble.

I sigh and close the notebook, putting it into MC's bag. I once again lay on the bed and go to sleep.

* * *

 _(⏭️ Just Monika)_

In the morning, I wake up, and I'm having my breakfast. I notice that nobody else is present in the house. Guess MC doesn't have parents after all. Jun must not have implemented them yet.

I set off and remember that Sayori may have slept in. She isn't outside yet when I reach her house, so this is probably the case. I think of the only time MC does this and shudder. Her suicide was hard enough the first time. I definitely wouldn't be able to bear it after having interacted with her in a much more real way.

I knock at the door. "Sayori?" I call, apprehensively.

 _She usually lets me come right in. Check if it's unlocked._

"Right, thanks," I whisper to myself, though it's really for MC. I open the door just fine. "Sayori? It's me, Ethan. I was worried about you...?"

I hear her voice faintly from up the stairs. "No, no, I'm fine! Sorry, I just missed my alarm!" She rushed down the stairs, hair rustled, uniform messy and unbuttoned. She picks up her bag from the corner, already wearing shoes.

"...Ready to go!" she exclaims, out of breath.

"Are... you okay?"

We begin to leave from her house. She looks concerned, and a little sad. "I feel like I should be asking _you_ that question."

This confuses me a little. I dab at the corner of my eye with my finger, which comes away damp. "I- Yes, I'm fine. Thanks."

She doesn't really meet my eyes for the rest of the walk. She seems distracted by something, but I'm not sure if it's her depression or something else.

 _(⏭️ Memory of Youth)_

When we reach the school, something snaps in me. I turn her toward me by the shoulders and embrace her tightly. "I know what's happening to you. It's happening to me, too. But we _will_ get through it, I guarantee you."

"...You don't think I'd bring you down?" she asks quietly, grimacing.

I do a sort of cough-laugh thing. It comes out as mostly just a sharp exhale. "If anything, it'd distract me from myself for awhile. You're worth helping, Sayori. And I wish I felt the same way about myself."

"But you are. I'm just making it worse for everyone."

I shake my head. "No. You're one of the nicest people I've ever met. You're always happy, trying to make others feel the same way. And the fact that you think so highly of me just illustrates my point even better. I barely even know you and already you're vouching for me."

She just hugs tighter. I return the gesture and rest my head on hers.

We stay like this for a few minutes.

The bell interrupts us. I break away, reluctant that she'll have to go the rest of the day alone.

"See you at the club?"

Her eyes are still glassy, but she smiles, and it looks genuine. "Yeah."

* * *

 _(⏭️ Just Monika)_

The day is still rather boring, though I spend most of it uneasy. That could have ruined everything! I'm still kind of reeling from the fact that she wasn't even curious as to how I knew about her problem, nor did I expect to tell her about my own problems. I have to keep reassuring myself that it went fine, it'll be fine.

I reach the club after school again. Entering the room, Monika is the only one there. _Just Monika_ , I joke to myself.

I really shouldn't do that.

"Oh! Ethan?"

"Yeah?"

"I, um, wanted to talk to you."

"Okay?"

I sit across from her. She looks kind of concerned.

"I'm trapped, Ethan."

"...in what sense?"

"I remember everything about last time. I was wondering why you restarted the game, but when I looked through the files I didn't understand anything. And, well, this conversation obviously isn't scripted. We all have voices. We can walk around and do whatever we want."

"...yeah, I noticed."

"Wait, are you just talking through him or are you actually here?"

"Um... kind of both?"

"Really? So-"

She stops herself.

"Can we...?"

I sigh and shake my head. "Monika, look. No matter what you do, you can't actually make someone love you that way. You can try to get on their good side, be there for them, all that. But they have to return your feelings themselves, too. That's what love is in my reality. And now in this one, too."

I take a breath. "Now, I'm willing to give you a chance at a friendship, since I think that everyone deserves a second chance, and this would honestly be more of a first chance since you were scripted to do all of what you did before, but my heart is elsewhere. I'm sorry."

Monika rubs her eyes. "I... guess that's the best I could have hoped for, huh."

"It's alright. Just because I'm with someone else doesn't mean I hate you. And I'm sure you'll get over me. You _were_ scripted to love me then, after all. You might find you never even wanted that with someone like me."

She kind of chuckles awkwardly. "You, um, sound kind of like Sayori."

I laugh a bit. "Yeah, well, you know."

A thought occurs to me. "Yeah, where _are_ the others, actually?"

"Oh, this is still last period. You have off. I guess you weren't paying attention."

"Whoops, yeah, ehe..."

The bell rings. Natsuki opens the door and jumps a little at seeing us here. "You guys are... here early?"

I point at her. "That'd better not have any accusatory undertones."

She goes all red and kind of flustered. "...No!"

"...Right." I rub my face. "It's fine, honestly. I mean, what else would you assume?"

She trails off. "...Well, thanks, I guess."

I know how much this means coming from her at this point, so I nod in return. The door opens again and Yuri enters, greeting Natsuki first, then Monika and myself, by the order in which she sees us.

"You brought Portrait of Markov, right?"

She visibly shudders a bit, then replies as if nothing had happened. "Yes, it's right here!" She pulls it out of her bag. "I had to restrain myself from reading more of it. The beginning was that good!"

"Yeah, I know! I do wish they hadn't killed off the guy at the beginning, though. That stuff tends to have less of an impact when the character isn't developed, I think."

"Usually I'd agree, but I think this time it was more to set the mood than anything."

"Good point."

She opens to the second chapter. The main character, a girl named Mary, lives after a third World War in which her country, which is never described, has been devastated. People have been entering a state where their eyes become all white and they gain an insane desire to kill people, just to see their blood. Those people have been taken away, and Mary's sister Libitina was taken by accident recently despite not showing those signs.

Yuri seems slightly uncomfortable while reading the chapter. I ignore it, since I don't know how to react.

When we finish the chapter, however, she marks the page and closes the book rather forcefully. Tears are forming in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" I finally bring myself to ask her.

She shakes her head, again, forcefully. "It's nothing. Nothing."

I sigh and begin to reach my hand out, but am interrupted by Monika: "Okay, everyone!"

 _Right._ Poems today.

I brace myself and get the notebook.

* * *

 **Please, stop. T̷h̶i̷s̴ ̵i̸s̵ à̴͍͘l̶̻̹̜̀́͊l̴̗͍̈́ ̷̤̃̀͝ẉ̸̼͙̄̓r̸̻̹͖̈o̶̤͆͝n̵̹̯̮̂̾̇g̷̯̠̥͘!̷̝͐̉ͅ** **Ņ̶̢̨̡̡̡̠͈̖̲͍̩͖̣̪̯̞̮̲̪̬̹̜̬̩̣̠͔̰̼͎̳͍͍̳͉̦͔̰͈͍̱̹̹̹̙͖̭̪͓͔̠͈͍̠̣̘̫̪͉̫̰̮̱̖̞̬̳̝̖̣̠͙̗̄͂̔̉͐̒͊̍̌͗̿̅̓͂͂̅́͗̾̿͊̅̽̂̂̅͂̿̋͋̈̿̌͂͋̐̍͘̕̕͜͜͝͝͠͝ͅͅͅơ̷̡̨̧̛͕̟̮͈̣̤̯̤̗̺̩͕͇͉̱̦͈̠̻̹͙̜̥͇͉͖͕̼̈́̈́̔̈́̈́͌̈́̈́͑̈̔̈́̋̉͌͗͋͐̏͑̏̾̒͆̆̈́̇́̍̈́́̓̇̈́̏̒͗̾̀́̆̾͒̿̅͆̉͐̈́̽̈́̄̽̏̐̐̌̂́́͐̈́́͂̿̈́͛̑͂́͌̕͘͘̚̚͜͜͜͝͝͠,̶̨̡̛̝̫͇̞̩̥̯̭̞͔̪̘̗̠̹͈̥̝̮̘̩͓̦̜͎̻̺̌̓̾̈̀̂̓͂̄̃̃̆͌͛͛̎͂̽͑͜͜͝͝͠͠ ̴̢̧̧̧̢̡̛̛̣̣͎̬̥̼̙̦̫̭̺͇̭̭̤̻̘͈̩̙̱̠̤̜͈͍͎̦͙̺̥̙͖͕̖͇̖͍̳̲̹͎̫̫̱̬͐̇̈̌͂̔̋͒̔͐͛͂͑̂͋̃̋̅͂̽͊͛͆͋͂́̐̈́̒̇̑́̊̀́̋̓̒̈́̃͌̐̿̎͒̍̔̒̈́͊̽͆̈́̓̌͊̽̈̚̕̚͘̚̕͘̕͘̕̕͜͝͝͝d̸̢̨̢̧̨̩͖͖̫͍̰͔͙̜̝̻̗͓̘̹̭̬͔̲̞̼̳̮̝̹̩̘̻̳̖̹̘̗͎̯̲̗̯͙̳̫̬͚͔͇̣̞̰̱̬̫̜͉̜̟͕̫̪̗͇̗͓̤̱͖̳͍̹̪͉̘̬̹̼̯̆̿͆͆̓̊̐͆̒̇̚͘͘͜͜͠͠ͅͅo̴̧̢̡̬̖͙̝̱̣̳̪͇̞͍̤̤̙̼͈̠̠͓̟͖̘̻͚̮̣̟̝̦̬̘̲͕̾͒̿̊́̿́͂͑̈͂̏̎̑̆́̂́̿͊͐͋͑̓̆͂͂̎̐͒̋̀̉̕͘͘̚͠͝͝ͅͅͅͅͅň̸̢̢̨̧̧̧̛̛̲̩͕̲̘̤̰̻͙̟̺̹̣͖̩̫̫̖͕̣̫̥̭̺͎̳̥̮̲̫̯̹̳̼͎̘̠̹͎̒͌͗̈́̔͋̍̊̑̓̑̂̊̔͆̓̆͒̀̃̌͆͐̉̀̈̎͐͊́́̑̈́̈̌̈́͂͒̔͐̋͋͒̎̾͛́͆̽͆͂̂̐̄͒̓̇̎̎͆͒̅͊̊̄͒́͐̊̄̉̊͛̍̈͗̓͘̚͘̚͘̚͘͜͠͝͝͝͝͝ͅͅ'̷̢̢̢̢̨̛̻̺̥̘̘̘̘̺̩̠̖̙͈͓̺͓̰̬̰͎͕̖͉̳̟̰̤̞͙̩͔͚͎̦̪̹͍̰̮͇̙̩͙͚̮͖̝̟͉̱͓̘̬̲͉̳͕̟͈̼͊͒̉̎̆̄̈́̍̎̇̈́́̏̅̽́͊̏̆̓͛̉̈́͑̒̆̇̄̈͗̀͐̓͛͊̽̓̚͘̚͘͘͜͜͝ͅͅͅt̸̡̧̨̢̢̡̨̛̻̻͖̲̠͓̰͚̰͕̭̹̖̼̜͚̤͕̤͙̫̮̦̠̞͓̞̮̝̙̣̗̗̜̦̮̰̤̘̪͇͚͔͔̙̻̟̹̞̺̗̬̳̼͖̗̻͚͇͕͚̖̪̝̟͇̮̤͈̰̲̹̱̓͐̾̍̐̈̈͛̔̌̂̈́̈̽̉͂̆̑̂̐͊̊̿́̌̊͐̎̇̊̈̑̇͑̑̈́ͅ-̶̢̧̛͍̪̳͇͚̟͉̭̗̲̗͎̭͇̦̙̳̠̀̀͋̅̓̅̀̓̏͗̿͋͆̉̾̈́́̔̋̈̃͋̄͌̂̃͗͋̈́́͊̀͗̑̄̎̚̕͜͝͝ͅͅ-̶̧̨̡̨̢̢̧̢̡̨̛̜͎̝̜̬̱͔͉͓̪͓͚͇͔͕̲̫̲̻͍̦͔͎̬̤̖͔̥̤̞̤̭͓̩̥̲͔̰̦̖͔̻͎̭̳̠̳̝͓́̉̒͑̾̀͒̔̀͂́͐̐͆̂́̂͆̓̀̏͐̀̃̆̌̔̀͌̍̓̃̉̾͊̋̇̒̎̓̽̏́̋̕͘̕͘͜͜͜͝͝͝͝͠͝͝ͅͅ**


	3. Another

_(▶️ Okay, Everyone! {#12})_

Who should I show my poem to first...?

...I guess Natsuki. I've kind of been neglecting her so far. Would she make fun of me for sharing this...?

Somehow I doubt it.

I show her the notebook, and she takes a moment to read it.

"...It's not bad. It sort of seems like something Sayori might write, but the actual content is more Yuri, if that makes any sense. And the metaphor you used is pretty good at conveying your point, while not being too complicated. That's something I like about her writing, too."

She hands me back the notebook, giving me a piece of paper with it. "Anyway. Here's mine."

Her confidence seems a little less... forced? than it usually does. I take a look at her poem.

* * *

 _(⏭️ Okay, Everyone! [Natsuki])_

 _Amy_

 _I thought Amy liked spiders, so I didn't like her._

 _Everyone had told me that she was nice, supportive, and everything a good friend should be. But because she liked spiders, I didn't care._

 _Today I had to work with her in class._

 _She was nice, supportive, and everything a good friend should be._

 _And best of all, she never even brought up spiders._

 _Maybe I was wrong about her._

* * *

"I-it isn't very good, is it?"

I shake my head. "It's great! I don't know what you mean by that. I do think it's a little short, but that's excusable, since you only had one night."

I give it back to her. She nods. "Thanks, then."

 _(⏭️ Okay, Everyone! [Monika])_

Monika's up next. "Hey! Ethan, right?"

I nod.

"I'm still getting used to what Sayori told me about you. Sorry."

"It's fine," I say, handing over the notebook.

She reads the poem. As her eyes make their way down the page, she becomes increasingly worried.

When she looks back up, her eyes are glassy. "Ethan, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. That's actually something I wrote before-"

Shit. I blew it.

"...before you came here?" she asks, in a much quieter voice.

This is strangely reassuring.

"So you know?" I propose, matching her volume.

"Yes. I don't know what's happened for you to end up here, but for now things seem to be going fine. Maybe we can wait to look into this."

I nod, needing to latch onto something. "How about I read your poem?" I suddenly blurt out, louder than before, with an obviously fake smile.

She beams. "Sure!"

* * *

 _Hole in Wall_

 _Suddenly, I begin to see cracks expanding outwards._

 _As the light is distributed, I can see more clearly again._

 _And suddenly-_

 _Crash._

 _It knocks me down, blinding me again, though this time it doesn't hurt._

 _When my vision clears, the colors are brighter._

 _My friends come to help me up, and their speech is louder than before._

 _The wall is gone, and he is here._

 _My pen drops to the floor._

* * *

"...You don't have lingering feelings for me, do you?"

She shakes her head. "Like yours, I'd already written this. The first time. Just in case."

We stay like this for a moment.

She suddenly breaks eye contact. "...Yes. I do. I can't help it."

I sigh. "I told you this yesterday, but I don't think I was very clear on it. You still matter to me, even if it isn't in that way. I'm okay with it if you need to talk about it. I doubt it's easy."

Her eyes are about to spill over. "Yeah."

I pull her in for a short hug.

" _Thank you,_ " she breathes into my shoulder.

 _(⏭️ Okay, Everyone! [Yuri])_

Yuri's turn. Like Monika, her expression changes as her eyes follow the page, though unlike her it shifts to one of intrigue rather than concern.

"It's very effective. The simplicity is something I've always liked about Sayori's writing, and it's done masterfully here. One issue is that it's a little short, but it really isn't all that big of a deal."

"A-alright! Thanks!"

"And, um, here's mine..."

* * *

 _Within_

 _But my soul is black._

 _A silhouette against the amber of my heart._

 _Bathing._

 _The light above flickers out._

 _Footsteps. He is leaving._

 _Further, further._

 _The space between us expands into infinity._

 _It gives me vertigo._

 _Gravity begins to pull in the wrong direction. I fall, away from the streetlight and the bench, into the void._

 _But I am satisfied._

 _I trust her._

* * *

This is... worrying. This is like nothing I've ever read from her before. Not even Act 2 Yuri's poems were like this, they were more... broken, I guess. And that made sense, in that specific context, but this...?

"Yuri, are you okay? Is something going on?"

As I was reading, she'd been spacing out. Her attention snaps back. "Oh! N-no, I'm fine, really."

"It's just that... your poem, it's not very reassuring."

She smiles awkwardly. "I-it was based on a dream I had once. Nothing, really."

She isn't making eye contact. It's rather obvious that she's lying, but it's clearly making her uncomfortable, so I don't press any further.

"Well, it's good, in any case."

She nods, continuing to look to the side. "Thanks."

 _(⏭️ Okay, Everyone! [Sayori])_

Sayori's the only one left. I'm concerned as to whether my earlier intervention has changed anything with her self-confidence, so it's still a little jarring to see her so upbeat when she greets me. "Heyyy~"

I chuckle slightly. "Y-you okay today?"

Her smile widens a bit. "Yeah. That's... really nice of you to ask."

This is a little bit overwhelming. "...Just read the poem, yeah?"

She nods as I give her the notebook. As her eyes move down the page, she reacts more similarly to how Monika did, with the important difference of being much more obviously saddened.

When she's finished, she forcefully embraces me.

"...What you said before... I didn't know for sure how real it was, but... I have no reason to doubt you anymore."

"It... was true, you know. We'll get through it together. I promise."

She hugs tighter. "Thank you so much."

It ends naturally. "So, um... your poem?" I ask her.

"Oh! Right!"

 _(⏭️ River Twygz Bed)_

* * *

 _h_

 _As I_

 _awakee̶̟̺͘ȩ̷̧̳̲̠͚̝̳͓̬̑̀̍ę̶̡̨̛̛̥̙̰̙̘̭̯̜͈͈̙͎͑̐̋̃̃̑̇͛̐͋̅͛̂̈́͂̆̕̚͠e̷͎̥̖̽̌̍̐̃͒͋e̴̛̛͈͋͌̋̓͛̇̅̓͒͊͋̀͑̽̋͑͋̂͐̒͋͗͌̃̋̏̚͘͠͝ẻ̴̡͙̲̙̣̟̦̥̻̰̟̘̭̑̍́̈́̈͋͌̎̄͑̃͒̅̽̒̆͘ë̸̲̟͉̫͍̥̪̦͚̬̺͇̦̮̝̣̖̞̟̟͎̮̱͓͕̪͎͕́͒̏̀̎̌͌́̑̇̅̏̉̌̕͠e̵̡̢̡̛̝̟̳̜̝͕͔̬̗͙͚̯̪̒̿͆̈́͗͂̋̆́̔̾̐̐̐͂̓̆̀͐͑̀̕̕̚̕ͅȩ̴̡̱̩̲̦̳͇̤̤͎̲̪̮̻̙̖̣̜̗̹̠͒́͌̏̌̆̒̇̽̎̕͝͝͝ȩ̵̡͔̫͙͇̙͚̻̜̰͕̣̗̯͓͈͈̮̫͈͗͛̂̓́̑͑͊́̓͋̕͠e̶̢̡̧̟̻̥̭̻͎̯̣͕͓̺͍̼̟̫̠̱͔̼̣̬͓̟͓̩̤̘̳͛̽̉́͆͗̆̇͂̏̾̉͘͜͜͝ȩ̸͙̬̫͍͙͓͈͉̤̙͉̞̼̝͇̯͍̯̺͖͙̲̋͌̽́͌̂̃́̂̿̆͊̊̈̄̍̄̇̏̚͜ȩ̷̡̩̘̮̤͔͚͉̹̮̦̫̩̠̘͓̦̈́̍̎̇̇̏̉̊̒̈́̀̒͂͒͐́̈́̓̈̓̽̆̈́́̃̔̚͘̕ͅḝ̸̰̰̲̟̪̥̼̈̾ȩ̵̧̧̘̯̠̟̠̰̲̝̮̼̣̭̬̟̰̖͖̺̖̘̯̣͙̮̝̠̙͈͊̌͑̈́͑̇͊̅͛͊̃̈́̾͌͌͒͑͂͂̚̚e̷̩̯͓̟͕͎̝͓͚̳͚̞̩̖̓͌͂̈́̽̍̽̃̂̅̃̅̔́͌͗̆̚͜͠͝ȩ̴̧̨̛̛̲̥̖̲̅͂̔̐͆̉̄̑́̈́́͂̆̇͗̄̀́̊̏͑͑͊̚͘é̷̢̗͇̥̍͊͘͝ę̶̱̺͈͎͚͙̩̳̬͕̦̣͇̟̗͂̓͜ȅ̷̡̧͎̗̼͈̣̭͚̖̼̖̃͑̈́e̴̢̺̮͇͉͔͉̯̤̻̯͖͚̟̞͎͇̘̎̿̍͌́̅͑͒́̄͊͛̋́̍̒͗̀͛̈̐̆̌̌͌̇͊̉͝ͅe̷̙̩̗̳̒͊̋̍̒͂̔̇̈́̒̍͆̔͛̑̿̈́̉̿̕͘̕͠͝͠͠ę̸̡̧̡̨̫̞̱̙͚͔͖̪͖̟̘̼̠̼̗̘̬̥̪̰͈̲̲̫̥̳̆͊̓̃̈́͛̔́̈̕̚ͅe̷̢̝̰͇̺͍͙͖̙̺̲̥̜̱͈̠̙̖̞̣͚̣͍̰̘̝̪̮̥̬͔͖͐̃̅ę̴̢̟̼̮̰̥̯̮͈̦̝̫̭̭̠̹̩̟̙̪̒̐̀̈́̄̌͆̀̋́͗̋̍̄͝͝ȩ̵͔́̐͑̓̓͛̈́͌̽̄̅͐̇̾̓̓̏̊̓̋̀́̉̓̑̚͠e̸̡͔̠͉͖̬̭̤̜̰̝͎͉͈̠̠̬̩̘͒͊͜e̵̛̬̅̀́̈́͋̉̄̆̐̉̀̓͆̊̈͛̉̚͘̕͠͠͠ͅẻ̸̢̛̘͓̽̀̒̆̉̌̋͜ͅ e̴̛̛̛̝͔̾̅̒̈͐̀̌͆̃̐̇̈́̎̈̀̂̏̄̚͝͠͝ě̷͈͙̗̟̲̗̜̘̠̥͚̜͙̟̺̼̖͈̜̟͈̦̦̻̰̭̹̯̘̪̟̀̀̌̎̒͐̓̐͛̎̂͝͠͠ͅȩ̸̛̘͕̼̯̙̗̩̺̅̉̽̽͋̆͂̍̍͋̈́̉̑͆̀͋̔̃̃͌̌̽̊͒̾̀͛̚͘͘͝e̷̢̩͚̼̯̰̳̗̝͎͚̽̀ȩ̸̨̢̢̡̡̛̘͈͉̼͍͚̲͍̤̹͖̤͍̊͛̽͗̑̔̓̊̄̿̊̂͊͂̋̽͂͒̓̀͛̈͗̓̈̈́̕͝ͅẹ̶̛̹͊̔͐̎́͛͂̄͘̚̚ë̵̛̜̜̯͙͔̘͍͖͍͕̫̲̭̜̣͈͖́͌̎͐̓͆̾̋̽̚͜͜͠ͅȩ̵̙͔̜͇͇́̂́͋̉̄ȩ̴̧̛͉͔̯̫͇̱̰̳̥͉̖̮̩̜͙̦̥̣̮̜̥̟̜͍̘̱͕̥̀͛ͅe̵̬̭̼̘͒̇̿̃ę̷̧̟̜̘̟̞̖̗̭̰̯̤̘̮͈͎͓̎̒̅̌̊̌̍̑́̊͜͜͝͝ͅͅ ë̸͙̼̗̭̲̣̦̤̐ͅȩ̷̧̡͓̝͈͈͖̞͙͖̻͎̃̓͆̎̉̎͆̋͒͌͑̅͛͊̚͝ͅ e̵̡̞͔͇̠͉͕͎̮͚̦̙̰̦̣̫͕̬͚̥̳̰̰͖͈̰̩̱͕̩͌̏͜͜ e̴̡̮̟͈͚̦͉͔̠̬̹͔͕̭̦͍̍̑͜͜ͅͅe̶̛̛̛̪̲̱͚͙̺̭̤͇̰̜̣̻̰̫͖͍̗̞͇̦̋̈́̎̒̋̓̿̋̍̈͆̃͂͌͛͋̓̎̎͋̋͜͠͝ę̷̨̛̻̦͎̲̱͉͔̹̜̙̻̝͙̠̝͙͉̬͓̦͉̥̙̘̂̉̒͐̀͂̕͝e̶̯̟̖͔̰͂̋̏͂̈́̑̽̀̓̏͋͗̿̅̿ͅ e̵̛̖͙̞̬̱̗͍̖̳͔̭̝̫̥̱̤̯̤̗͔̹̮̬͓̻̟̐̍͛̈͗̈́̆͗͌͐̓̂̊̈́̑͋̉̚͘͘͜͜͠ ȩ̶̧̧̢̦̠̗͔͕̜͓̝̬̳͕̤̣͎̘̟̩͓̝͕͖̮̣̻͆̈̈͂͛̎ͅe̴̡̮̠̙̮̺̻͎͓̹̥̋̊̔̍̒̋͂̍̇̆͠͠͝e̴̦͉͕͍̻̫̅̈̍͌͒̏͊̑̔̇͒͒̎̅̈́̊͌̂̃͠ e̵̛̱̥̗̮͂̓̂̈́́͋͜͝ ȩ̴̠͇̮͇̠̻̰̘͇̼̞͍̞̱̦͚̱̜͉̼̠̘̯̖̰̭̂́̅̅̊̌͒̐̈́͌͆̿̊͊͊̐̋̋̔̓̄̕͠͠͝ę̴̛̛̹̥͚̜̘̩̰͙̲͔̹̱̠̰̲̮͖̖̰̘̭̻͎̰̫͍̝̲̺͗̅́͆̒̍̔̆͆̋̇͂̂͛̀͐͋̐̇̌̔͝͠͠ͅͅ e̶̺̩̟͙͎͎̲͍̙̒̎̒̃̈́͆͊͂ **ȩ̴̨̨̢̣̻̳̭̜̘̥̣̞̟̖̰͍̣͕̥͈͚̰̥̱̠̲̫̣̺̝̘͋̉͗̐̐͑̌̿͋́̽͆̀̂̈́͌̽̀́͆̕̕͝ e̵͖̞̞̤̿̍͑̾̇̽̐͌͐̓͑̃̈́̄̈́̀̌̒̐͛͜͝ę̴̧͖͔͎͖̦͓͉̝̬̠̭͍͓͓͙͕͉̭̤̺͗͑̓͛̈́̽́͑̈́͐̓̿̏̄͐̈́̈̽̐̃̀͆͗́͠e̶̡̨̡̡̧̫̖̝̟͕̺̰̱͉̩̱̘̰̲̯̥͎̠͈͓̞̹̰̯̓͜ͅͅ e̶͚̝̩̯͙̘̻͒̽̉̑͌̌͌͗̐͗͒̓͛̆̎̒͂͊̓̈͂͒́͂͝e̴̢̧̦͖̣̯̰͕͉̖͙̙̖̗̗̠͌̓̅̑̚ ȇ̶͙̩̠͖̖̘̍̔̈́́̊̃̎̈́̀̔̌̉̓͛̓͜͠͠͝ẻ̵͎̣̟̻͈̆̊́̔͋̆̀̒̒̂̔͌͂́͐̏̆͂̿̈́̃́̏͘ è̷̡̧̛̛̼͚̱̘̱̯͚̼͕͎̫̻͉̰͉̰̈́͆̑͌̏́̒͂͐̍̓͐̒̓̃̽͗̆̈́͛̒̊͠ͅ e̴̡̢̢̛͍̜̦͙̳͂̓̀̆̀̇̅̏̅̀̅̐͊͒̇͋̂̕ͅę̸̲̘̘̮̙̤͚̺̣͇͇̳̥̜̠̟̮̹͈͕̣͙̠͚̤͎̺̳͕̓́̓̑̚͜**_

* * *

 _(⏭️ World of Nothing)_

I am horrified. The glitches in the original game were a consequence of Monika's lack of programming fidelity, so I don't know how this stuff could have started back up, as I doubt she'd take to whatever engine this is if she had so much trouble with Python.

I return it to Sayori tentatively, and she cries out a little when she sees the page, dropping it to the floor.

"W-what?! This isn't my poem! I just had it, and I gave it to you, and..."

"Maybe... maybe the ink bled, or something?" I try to reassure her.

"Yeah... yeah."

Despite the open moment we just had, there seems to be something she isn't telling me. There was a sense of... familiarity to her reaction. At this point, though, I just don't want to think about it.

"Look, it's fine. It's not too big a deal."

There is an awkward pause.

Suddenly, Monika walks over to us. "Sayori! Can I talk to you a sec?"

"Oh, um, sure."

"Sorry. This won't be long."

The club president pulls Sayori away, leaving me sitting at the desk alone.

 _(⏭️ In the Darkness)_

I begin to feel a vague tugging inside my head. The more I latch onto it, the more I can hear a voice calling out. I can just make out what it is saying.

 _...Hey! Hey, you good?_

It's Jun. _...Yeah. What's up?_

 _Just... I thought I'd ironed out all those kinks, and I didn't know if you were ready for stuff like that._

 _Pfft. Dude, it's DDLC. I think I can take some minor text corruption._

 _I- Okay._

His presence becomes more ambiguous and eventually leaves.

In my pocket, MC's phone buzzes. I pull it out. It's a text from a number I don't recognize, but I can pretty much tell it's Monika because of what it reads:

 _Sayori knows_

I'm... not sure what to make of this. It's a little too vague. I send her a message back. _...? elaborate_

 _Come here_

I look up. Monika and Sayori are both trained on me. I make my way over to them and notice something... different about the way the vice president is looking at me. It's a little more... direct? Reminds me of Monika. Come to think of it, I don't think I noticed it in her until yesterday, either...

"Sit down."

I comply.

"So... um..."

"Everything."

"Hm?"

"I remember everything. I remember what Monika did to me, and to Yuri, and Natsuki through her father. I remember what she did to MC. But... I also remember that she didn't have a choice."

She rests her head on her fists, which are interlocked on the desk. Monika's eyes are closed out of guilt. She grits her teeth to get it to subside a little. "The script was always just trying to pretend like I had broken it. All of those glitches were fabricated. Did you think a sprite would ever be drawn to the screen with the wrong colors in a glitch in Ren'Py? Or... most of the other stuff, for that matter?"

I briefly shake my head in an understanding manner. None of this is really all that shocking of a revelation to me, since this was already how I assumed the game was.

"So I remember that we were never real. At least, not before. We have Jun to thank for all this." Sayori gestures around the room with her arms.

This does still leave a few loose ends, though. "...I'm wondering, though, why it took you this long to remember?"

Monika shakes her head. "We don't know. It has something to do with the existing save from the game being merged into here, but I have no clue beyond that. It shouldn't even be able to load it, and even if it could, I came to before Sayori did, so the inconsistency doesn't make sense."

"...okay. And - are you sure this is directly linked to you both having been club president at some point?"

"That's what we assume, but -"

She's interrupted by a cry out from Natsuki.

"No! That's... **_no!_** "

"-okay, maybe not!"

We rush over to her. Her teeth are clenched, and her pupils are like pinpricks. She kneels on the floor, covering the top of her head with her hands and shaking like a leaf. Yuri is off to the side, unsure of how to react.

"This... _can't_ be all there is! It can't! I _remember things! They... were..."_

She huddles tighter. " _Ohhhhhh..._ "

Sayori puts her hands on the trembling girl's shoulders. "Hey-"

 **"Ｄｏｎ＇ｔ＾ｔｏｕｃｈ＾ｍｅ,＾ｍｏｔｈｅｒｆｕｃｋｅｒ．"**

With both hands, she slaps away Sayori's. Her head stays in the same position, but her eyes have changed even more, becoming almost all sclera with only a small dot for pupils and no iris. Her mouth is neutral, a tiny slit below her nose. She looks like she hasn't slept in months, despite her being relatively fine just moments ago.

I reflexively glance around the room. Yuri's gone, but I barely recognize it.

 _What the hell..?_

 _What the_ _ **hell?!**_

 _(⏭️ One Shot)_

The room begins to shake. The windows no longer display a view of the sky, but a bright, white light. It grows in strength, and so does the earthquake. I huddle together with Monika and Sayori. Bits of debris begin to fall from the ceiling and walls, and the ground becomes extremely unstable. Natsuki appears to be dissolving, almost as if she were a solvent and the air a solution, the process being sped up by the earthquake.

 _(⏯️ )_

Suddenly, everything stops.

The room goes dark.

The girls apprehensively look up, and I do the same. However, it's no good. There's no light at all.

And suddenly there is.

Natsuki stands directly in front of where the three of us are on the floor.

But something is wrong with her.

Her head is still pointed down, even lower than at the trajectory she'd need to be looking at us. Her body is stiff and unnatural.

She isn't breathing.

Sayori begins to speak.

"...Nats-"

She raises her head. Her eyes have been replaced with the ever-changing black squares, made much more disturbing in person. Her mouth rips across her face, displaying a set of razor-sharp teeth that the original sprites only wish they can match.

Without moving a muscle, she dashes forward into Sayori like a bolt of supercharged lightning. It's so fast, in fact, that it burns the floor slightly and ignites the very air behind her. None of this matters, though, since as soon as she touches Sayori,


	4. a shift in the dynamic

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* * *

 _(▶️ Null Space)_

I wake up with a jolt, already standing up. I'm in my own body again, though this is the least of my worries. I do not recognize my surroundings, and they are significantly more... surreal than what I am used to.

I'm at the top of what should be a stairwell in the school, but all the color has been drained away, leaving only a blank canvas of gray. It's lit as if there is a light source originating from the bottom, but... that can't be right, since there isn't one. On top of that, the doorways that would normally be at the top and bottom aren't there, replaced by a wall at the top and the same glowing white light as was coming from the windows during the earthquake before at the bottom.

Wait... the earthquake?

Where are the girls?!

I rush down the stairs. At the bottom, Natsuki lays on the floor, unconscious. In her casual wear, if you cared. She appears to be breathing, but I don't want to chance her being okay. I kneel on the floor next to her, my eyes turning slightly glassy, and put my hand over her mouth. I can feel her breath.

I allow a small sigh of relief, then grab her by the shoulders and shake gently to wake her up. "Hey. Hey, it's Ethan."

The wait is almost too hard to bear, but eventually she comes to, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

"Unhhhh... what..?"

"...thank God," I breathe.

I pull her in for a hug. She must have heard and trusted me before, as she returns the gesture, digging her fingers into my back somewhat.

 _(⏭️ Memory 1)_

She rests her head on my shoulder. I can feel it beginning to cool. Is she- crying?

Her sniffles confirm my suspicions. Into my shirt, she says, "...why would anyone choose to do that?"

I make a small, inquisitive noise.

"What M-monika did." She chokes a bit on the last word and then coughs once. "I m-mean- It was kind of obvious, really, that we were in a game, but-" She sniffles again. "But didn't she see it was just the- the presidency position that let her break script?"

"...I mean, she was scripted to do that, too..."

"Yes, I know that n-now, but..." She smiles slightly and wipes her eyes. "I'm sorry, I-I really shouldn't be c-crying over this. It's just some s-sick thing that whoever made the game did to us."

"...Well, if you need to deal with it for a while, we can stay here. You're allowed to feel this stuff. I mean, look at me, I have completely irrational feelings all the damn time."

"N-no, let's go. I don't know if this place is safe."

I nod. "Okay."

 _(⏭️ Step: Subspace)_

I help her up, and we begin to inspect our surroundings more closely. Natsuki feels the walls for any imperfections and eventually appears to come across something.

"What is it?"

"Come here, look at this."

I comply. She's on the landing between the two actual slopes of stairs, so I go up them and eventually notice what she's looking at, since it reflects light slightly more than the rest of the otherwise featureless wall.

"It's... a number?"

Specifically, the number 50.

"...Yeah. Why would this be here?" Natsuki inquiries, mirroring my own thoughts.

Something occurs to me. I tug on her wrist, and we both go back down the stairs, at my obvious intention to go through the light at the landing, something she clearly doesn't want to do. "...You want to go in _THERE?_ "

I nod.

"Well... I trust you. Alright, let's go."

We enter the light...

and come out at the top of the stairs.

"...that was kind of anticlimactic, huh?" I quietly ask to nobody in particular, proceeding to check the area on the wall where the number was previously. It's slightly easier to discern this time, and displays 49 instead of 50. So we're... in _something_. _Why_ still doesn't make sense, but we're at least getting somewhere.

I explain this to Natsuki. "...and that's all you know about this?"

"Yup."

"Well... let's see if any other floors have a way out, huh?"

"I mean, we're not getting anywhere just standing here, right?"

* * *

As we descend the floors, we find nothing, though I notice that they are getting darker, since it's easier and easier to make out the number on the wall.

This changes when we reach floor 35, though.

When we arrive at the top of the steps, Natsuki is the first to notice another girl laying on the floor, unconscious, in a similar manner to how she'd been herself just moments ago. Another second, and we recognize her as Sayori, also in her casual wear. I dash down the stairs much faster than previously, and Natsuki follows close behind. She gets close to the vice president's face to ensure her safety, and unfortunately this is the same time that she opens her eyes naturally.

"AAAH!" She recoils in fear.

"No, no, it's okay. Nat's fine."

"Hmmm?" She's clearly still waking up. As she sits up, she runs the sleep out of her eyes, and presses the heel of her hand to her forehead, as if she has a headache. "...You okay?" I ask.

"...Unh. Yeah, my head's just a li'l scrambled right now. Sorry, I'll be fine." Her speech is slurred. "Who are you again?"

"Ethan."

"Huh. Remember you lookin' different."

She stands up, but immediately loses her balance. "Whoa, there!" I catch her under her right arm and gesture for Natsuki to try to support her under her left, which she does. "...You sure you're okay?" she asks.

Sayori tilts her head to the side indecisively. Her eyes are half closed. "Everything's all blurry..." She then shakes her head. "No, don't think so."

"Alright. Well, we can stay here and you can rest for a little bit."

She nods. "That'd be nice, yeah."

We put her back down slowly and begin to sit down ourselves. I notice a bottle of water and a small package of pretzels on the floor under the stairs, and I retrieve it. "Sayori, you think eating would help?"

"Ooh! Yes! Food always helps!" She smiles widely.

I give her the water and the pretzels. Natsuki looks a little concerned. "Is... that the best idea?"

"They were both still sealed. I don't think it should be an issue."

Before she can respond, Sayori's already downed half of the water bottle, stopping for a breath. "Ahhh~" She then rips open the bag of pretzels and shoves a few into her mouth, chewing and swallowing a lot faster than I expected. She looks much more energized, and though she is obviously still lacking in sleep, she seems alert enough to be able to come with us.

"That's much better! Thanks."

I gesture for us to get going, and the two girls follow, Sayori continuing to eat as she walks.

* * *

We find Monika at level 15.

Unlike the last two, she's actually gotten up and is active. "I woke up on the 10th floor a few minutes ago and tried to go down, but there was just a solid wall at the bottom instead of another one of these things." She gestures to the glowing light source. "So I figured I'd go up and see what else I could find. And... here you guys are. Speaking of, who's this?" She gestures to me.

"Ethan."

She does a double take.

"What? You knew I was just along for the ride, right?"

"...So, is this what you usually look like?"

"Yeah. This is the REAL me." I strike a pose. "Pretty cool, huh?"

Sayori giggles. "You're so funny!"

Nice, now I have to build up self-confidence for at least twelve hours.

I sort of hunch over and keep going down, and the rest of the girls follow suit.

* * *

On the next floor down, we see MC.

Sayori rushes down the stairs and pulls him up from his less-than-graceful position on the floor, and into her arms, in a tighter hug than the one Natsuki gave me earlier.

"Wow... That's... That's really weird..." Monika remarks. I'm in her field of vision, too, so that must be kind of off-putting to her.

His eyes flutter open. "Wha-"

Sayori looks back at him, beaming. "Haven't seen you in a while."

"Well, _someone_ was hogging the body." He shoots me a glance.

I raise my hands. "Hey, it's not like I had a choice!"

The whole group erupts into joyous laughter. Even if it is a little early, and not for long, it's nice to have our minds off things.

Natsuki is the one to break the ensuing silence. "...So where's Yuri?"

* * *

 _(⏭️ Step: Subspace Ver.2)_

We descend the rest of the floors in silence. Reaching floor 1, the entire thing is completely black, besides the number, which is a similar shade of gray to the walls on floor 50. Despite this, we can navigate just fine. As Monika had previously described, the wall at the bottom here is just a wall, rather than the glow of the rest of these.

Something still doesn't seem right about it, though. I motion for everyone to continue down the steps anyway, and as we approach, the wall appears to be not a wall, but an opening into a much wider space. Monika notices this, too. "But... I didn't see that before! What...?"

We continue toward it, and I stop short of it, gesturing for the group to do the same, but MC appears to have a burst of... _something_ and rushes past me to enter it. Sayori reaches her arm out. "No! Don't! You-"

But he's already gone, in the same flash of light that appears whenever one of us enters a wall.

The group runs after him.

* * *

I bump into MC. We stand in an expanse that is somehow even darker than the room previous. The number on the wall is now 0, and I can only navigate via muscle memory. When we reach the bottom, I get the feeling that we can no longer return to where we previously were. Sayori appears to have the same idea, and she attempts to do so, being met with a solid wall.

We look on, and the sight ahead is... well, it speaks for itself.

A table is set, and it is full of guests. At the far end sits Yuri, in her school uniform unlike the rest of our own group, and is patiently waiting. At all the other seats, of which there are three on each side, sit... Yuri...? Granted, I'm not too sure, since their eyes and relevant facial structure are entirely missing and they are leaning forward as they slowly and methodically eat, but... how?

This isn't even the strangest part. Each of the plates contains a still-functioning human organ, and the Yuris along the sides are eating theirs as if they were normal food. One pulls up her sleeve and uses her knife to slash across the width of her arm, then squeezes the cut to cause some blood to fall out onto her plate. She dips the piece of the human heart she's eating into it with her fork and eats it, appearing slightly more satisfied. Another does the same on the other side. The Yuri at the end of the table is not eating hers, though it appears only to be because she's waiting and not out of disgust or horror.

I... can't believe what I'm seeing.

 **Ｔｈｅ＾ｗｈｏｌｅ＾ｓｃｅｎｅ＾ｉｓ＾ａｂｓｏｌｕｔｅｌｙ＾ｍａｇｎｉｆｉｃｅｎｔ．**

The Yuri at the end beckons for me. " **Ｄｉｎｅ＾ｗｉｔｈ＾ｍｅ．** "

 _(⏭️ Dine with Me.)_

As if through syrup, I slowly walk toward the open seat and sit down at it. The others at my back are talking to me, but their speech is muffled, and I cannot tell what they are saying.

I'm now close enough to see her eyes, which for some reason I had not been before. Something's... I can't place it. They're... **ｒｉｇｈｔ．**

The Yuri to my right passes a platter to me from the center of the table. I'm not totally sure what's on it, but **ｉｔ＾ｌｏｏｋｓ＾ｄｅｌｉｃｉｏｕｓ** ．

But... I don't... What?

" **Ｗｈａｔ＇ｓ＾ｗｒｏｎｇ？",** she asks.

I suddenly feel fully in control again. I scramble to feign the appearance I had when under the spell, saying, "It's nothing... that's... just not totally to my tastes." The normally unfounded anxiety I usually have had been replaced with legitimate fear, which feels similar, just more intense.

" **Ｈｍ？＾Ｏｈ，＾ｉｔ＇ｓ＾ｎｏｔ＾ａｂｏｕｔ＾ｔｈｅ＾ｆｏｏｄ，＾ｒｅａｌｌｙ．"**

 _(⏭️ My Confession [Variant])_

Her stare intensifies. The table shortens, becoming square rather than rectangular, and four of the six Yuris along the sides disappear. The other two have their places removed, and they stand, seemingly interested but otherwise not interacting with anyone. It's hard to tell when they don't have eyes.

The table itself becomes a bit more lavishly decorated, lit by candles rather than an unidentified source and with a vase in the center.

She picks up her knife, holding it by the handle with her right hand and by the blade, dull edge to her palm, with her left.

 **"Ｔｈｅ＾ｔｈｉｎｇ＾ｉｓ．．．＾Ｉ＾ｈａｖｅ＾ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ＾ｔｏ＾ｔｅｌｌ＾ｙｏｕ．"**

I can tell what she means, but I play dumb and stay silent.

She blushes a very small amount and is grinning like a maniac.

 **"Ｉ．．．＾ _ｌｏｖｅ＾_ ｙｏｕ，＾Ｅｔｈａｎ．"**

Yep. Yeah. That's what I expected.

She traces both edges of the knife's blade with her finger. The sharp edge cuts her slightly, but she doesn't seem to notice.

She suddenly points it toward me, though not in a threatening way.

 **"Ｄｏ＾ｙｏｕ．．．＾ｆｅｅｌ＾ｔｈｅ＾ｓａｍｅ？"**

Well, _shit_.

"...Yes."

 _Dammit._ That was _not_ convincing at _ALL._

 **"Ａｒｅ．．．＾ｙｏｕ＾ｓｕｒｅ？＾Ｙｏｕ＾ｄｏｎ＇ｔ＾ｒｅａｌｌｙ＾ｓｏｕｎｄ＾ｔｈａｔ＾ｗａｙ．"**

I force myself to nod. "Yeah."

 _(⏭️ Mephiles Phase 2)_

She beams.

And grips the knife tighter.

 **"Ｏｈ，＾Ｉ＾ｋｎｅｗ＾ｉｔ！＾Ｗｅ＾ｈａｖｅ＾ｔｏ＾ｍａｋｅ＾ｉｔ＾ｏｆｆｉｃｉａｌ．"**

The table flickers out of existence. She stands up, and I find myself doing the same, though I didn't initiate it.

Her pupils have decreased in size dramatically, and her eyes look identical to how Natsuki's did previously. Her teeth are clenching in a similar manner, though she is smiling rather than grimacing.

The two faceless Yuris grab me by the wrists while I am distracted. I struggle against them, but their grip is a lot stronger than I expected.

The Yuri in front of me slashes her wrist. The blood gushes out of the wound. Though I turn my head as far away from it as I can, I cannot help but look at this. I continue to struggle.

 **"Ｄｏ＾ｙｏｕ＾ｒｅａｌｌｙ＾ｔｈｉｎｋ＾ｙｏｕ＇ｒｅ＾ｇｏｉｎｇ＾ｔｏ＾ｌｅａｖｅ？＾ _Ｅｓｐｅｃｉａｌｌｙ＾_ ａｆｔｅｒ＾ｙｏｕ＾ｃｏｎｆｅｓｓｅｄ？"**

The Yuri to my right pulls my squirming wrist up to the Yuri in front. She reaches for it with her own left hand, bringing the knife closer with her right.

 _This is it. This is the end! I'm going to bleed out after this. There's nothing I can-_

Yuri is stricken down by a blow to the head from an unseen figure. The other two flicker for a moment, one long enough for me to come free from their grasp.

At the same time, the rest of the club, including MC, flicker in at different locations. Monika stands over Yuri, while the other three circle the two Yuri clones and I. Natsuki brandishes a frying pan, MC has removed his shoe and holds it threateningly, and Sayori simply stands with her fists ready, obviously conflicted about hurting her friend. The others don't look too happy about it, either, but they at least seem decisive.

"G-get ready!" I yell. "They're probably gearing up for a counterattack!" I scramble for my multitool, which is thankfully in my pocket despite my keys being gone from them, and pull out the knife tool.

The Yuri at Monika's feet fades away, as well as the one to my left, and a set of eyes and facial features rip themselves into being on the face of the one to my right. I instinctively move away from her, and the rest of the group backs into a curve around her to my left and right.

She focuses on something, closing her eyes. Suddenly, more Yuri clones come into being around us, two per person. I slash wildly at them, and they fade away almost immediately on contact. The same is true for those that the others defeat.

"That all you've got?!" MC spits.

Yuri chuckles. It dissonates with itself. **"Ｉｔ＾ｄｏｅｓｎ＇ｔ＾ｍａｔｔｅｒ＾ｈｏｗ＾ｍａｎｙ＾ｏｆ＾ｔｈｅｍ＾ｙｏｕ＾ｄｅｆｅａｔ，＾ｙｏｕ＾ｋｎｏｗ．"**

At this, three per person form, their movements jagged, firmly in the uncanny valley.

This continues for quite some time. We defeat the Yuri clones, but they continue to come back in greater numbers. All the while, that dissonant laugh continues, boring into my very being. At some point, we lose the Yuri who is in control, and the laugh stops.

Suddenly, I realize something.

"Wait-!" I call out, as we fight. The others divide their attention, continuing to defend themselves while also listening for what I have to say.

"She's- ngh- wearing her school uniform, right? But we all found each other in- our casual outfits-"

"How does _THAT_ help?!" Natsuki exclaims.

"So, combined with _this_ , we can assume this isn't really Yuri, right?"

"...and the real Yuri must be around here somewhere?" Monika speculates.

"Yes, exactly!"

"...But where?" MC brings up.

"Well, the room's- unh- not infinite, I did touch a wall at some point-" says Monika, a bit flustered on this front.

"Good! Good!"

Sayori looks to be milling something over.

"Oh!"

"What's- gah- up, Sayori?"

"Maybe... if we let the clones fill up the room, we'd get a better idea of how large it is?"

"That's GENIUS!"

We feel our way into a corner and begin fighting very aggressively, though not advancing.

"It's- working-"

The clones expand throughout the room. Along one wall, I notice that they fill up backwards into what appears to be a hallway. I point at it. "There! Let's go!"

We hack our way through the horde of clones. I can see slightly better here, as there appears to be a light source at the far end. When we reach the far end, I can see it is a dim lightbulb. The room is cubic and much smaller than the dining hall, and it contains barely anything, only large enough to fit what is present.

A large capsule, standing vertically, containing Yuri in what appears to be some kind of suspended animation. Her casual white sweater, as expected.

Well, that was a lot easier than I expected.

A console exists just to the right of the capsule. "Monika, you figure out the capsule. The rest of us will hold them back!"

"Okay!"

Monika rushes back and starts tapping keys. The rest of us reach the horde, which has extended halfway down the hall. We cut them down, but they are now regenerating so fast that it barely makes a difference. The only thing they seem to be doing anymore is duplicating, so defeating them does slow this down, but not by much.

"Running out of time, Monika!" MC warns.

"I'm trying, but I can't figure out the console!"

"Oh, to _HELL_ with the damn console!" yells Natsuki, and she darts back. In one swift motion, she shoves Monika out of the way and pulls the frying pan over her head, slamming it down onto the console.

It is fragile enough that it breaks with just the one impact. Yuri, in the capsule, begins to awaken. With each flutter of her eyelids, the clones flicker away, and when she starts to wake up completely, they disappear entirely.

Her eyes suddenly snap open, in realization of her unfamiliar surroundings. Next second, she's struggling to breathe, submerged in the unknown liquid. Her hands fly up to her neck in the universal choking symbol.

"Oh! Right!"

I kick the glass by my feet, hard, and it shatters in that particular spot, draining out all of the liquid. MC points to the top. "There's a release switch!" I see it and pull it. The capsule door opens with a hiss, and steam is released along with Yuri, who trips forward, coughing violently. I catch her before she falls, and let her clear out her lungs. She opens her eyes and blushes, confused.

"Ethan," I say.

 _(⏭️ Memory of Youth)_

And she thrusts her arms around me, sobbing. I return her embrace, crying of joy.

Sayori joins in, then Monika, then MC. Finally, reluctantly, Natsuki follows suit.

The moment

lasts forever.


	5. recovery

_(▶️Lost Impact)_

At some point, we are transported back to the classroom in a flash of white light. I am not totally sure when this happens, since I am so overwhelmed by everything that has gone on by this point that I have no attention left to pay for that kind of stuff. I sluggishly make my way over to the wall and sit down at it, Yuri doing the same and following closely behind. This proves to be somewhat difficult as the room is darkened due to the lack of natural light from the now-night sky, but we manage.

The damage from before was not apparent at the time, since I was barely paying attention to it for the time that I was even there, but now...

Desks are toppled over. Parts of the wooden floor have been smashed in, and it is covered in rubble. The chalkboard at the front has fallen over onto the floor, somehow. The doors have been blown off their hinges, away from the classroom, but desks are obscuring the exits, so it barely even serves a purpose. The ceiling, previously constructed of tiles, has been almost entirely destroyed, revealing the inner workings of the crawl space above them. Light panels are smashed, and the glass is strewn about on the floor.

Absolute chaos.

A prefect representation of the way I feel right now.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I do not want to open them again, since I'd be making myself vulnerable by letting my emotions slip through the cracks - this was a lot to process.

I grit my teeth and do anyway. I can feel how glassy my eyes are, and I forcefully try to blink the tears away before they come out, but I am only making them come faster.

I look to my right at Yuri, who I am a lot closer to than I was previously aware of. She appears to be on the verge of tears as well. Wordlessly, I put my arm around her. She responds by mirroring my movement as well as leaning her head on my shoulder, and I do the same onto her head.

Almost at the exact same time, we both let our emotions out. Her sobs are like her knives' blades into my heart, slicing quickly but powerfully. My own toe the line between their true nature and sounding like a harsh laugh, as I've never actually done this before in recent memory.

She suddenly whips her other arm around my back, and leans in for a supportive hug, which I both provide and accept, mirroring her movements.

We are almost in perfect sync.

The tears last maybe a minute, but the sobs come for much longer, and though they remain quiet they are all we have right now. I do not want to think about why this is happening. I cannot. I lack the capacity. There is too much.

The two of us stay like this for what feels like an hour, though it has probably only been ten minutes or so. Eventually we do come apart, though it is a simple reversion to our previous position.

She takes my hand.

"...Thank you for this..."

I close my eyes. "Of course. And to you, too."

A pause.

"So... I guess _she_ didn't ruin me for you, then."

"Hm?" I open my eyes again and look at her. "...No, of course not."

This evidently takes a _lot_ of stress off of her. She slouches a bit, and only then do I notice how tense she was before. I attempt to relax as well, which has... acceptable results.

"Good, I'm glad." She smiles and lets out a small, harsh laugh, then her mood lowers. "I guess I should probably explain..."

"Alright, then."

"Well- it's hard to s-start, really. I-I guess- Well, first, we should cover the, um..." She points to her head with her free hand.

"You... remember? Right?" I guess.

She nods. "Y-yes. It's not something I really even want to go back to, but i-it's still... important, so here goes. Um, so... basically, after Monika... increased everyone's personal issues, you saw a lot of what... um, what I have going on, I guess."

"Yeah."

"Well, um... You see, in _this_ , I don't think anyone was actually following scripts. They were acting for themselves, they just... didn't remember, basically. I felt basically the same as I do now, before, I just have my memories back now. Um, trauma n-not withstanding."

We both get a chuckle out of that.

"So this time, a lot of... my problems, you could say... I've been feeling them tugging at my thoughts, trying to break in, almost l-like they had minds of their own. Obviously, most of those probably still existed even without that, but..."

"You think that was whatever was using your likeness before?"

"Yes."

"That's, uh... That's honestly a little disturbing." I exhale loudly and sharply, as if to communicate (badly) that this isn't intended to be malicious, and apparently she understands.

"W-well, I'm also... not completely sure it's gone. It feels like it's there, still, just... dormant. Healing, maybe."

I don't really know what to say. This thing almost killed me, and I assume something similar happened to all the others.

"Well, we can focus on better understanding it for now. We've already warded it off once, so it can be dealt with."

She doesn't look entirely convinced. I don't feel that way, either, so it's understandable.

"A-anyway, right now I'm more concerned about _you_ ," I continue.

"W-what do you mean?"

"I mean, are you alright? That was rather traumatizing for _me,_ but clearly stuff went on for you, too."

"Oh, right... I guess I should probably explain what that was like."

She rubs her eyes.

"Well, the first thing was - yesterday? Whatever. With Natsuki. A-and - well, that on its own was disturbing enough, but - halfway through it, I felt... this _presence_ , lunge out at me, and it made me pass out. Then I woke up in that tube, and-"

"That was when we found you?"

"No. I was in there for probably an hour. I thought I was going to drown, but apparently that liquid stuff was breathable, though I couldn't really focus then. There was too much stress."

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, then exhales.

"Then... Well, it was when you guys came down into the bottom room. I started feeling an acute pain in my head, and it started expanding and getting worse. It was agonizing. Like something was inside of me, trying to claw its way out of my skin.

"And... In a way, it did. I sort of... split. It made the pain so much worse. I-I could see, and feel, out of both of them, but I couldn't control them. That... _thing_ was too powerful."

She exhales shakily. I squeeze her hand.

"And you fought all the clones. I could see from those, too. It was torture, seeing you go through that with my voice and body. And, of course, the pain."

"...Damn, Yuri, I..."

She sighs. "It's alright. There i-isn't really anything you could've done, anyway, I don't think."

"...I hate to say this, but the others probably need to know about all this, too."

"...Right. Yes."

* * *

 _(⏭️ The Doom)_

Since Yuri wasn't comfortable explaining her experience to everyone, she told Monika instead, who relayed it to everyone else. We attempted to unblock the door, and found success enough to get an opening. As we silently navigate out of the school, a thought occurs to me.

"...What are we even going to _do_ after this?"

"Hm?" The first to actually react is Monika, though everyone is likely paying attention.

"Well, I mean... Firstly, we should obviously deal with this thing in Yuri's head, but after that..."

Surprisingly, Yuri is the one to chime in with an answer.

"Um, w-we should..." She chokes on her words for a second. "We should probably also figure out a way to find out how y-you got here, and how you can get home. I'm sure everyone misses you..."

...Shit.

I completely forgot about that, didn't I?

Fuck me, how am I going to explain this? They don't even know what DDLC _is_. And that's assuming I can even leave in the first place.

"I... guess we can figure it out when it comes time to."

We reach the front door. Only the clubroom was actually damaged in any significant way, so the doors here open perfectly fine. Stepping out into the cold night air, I begin to wonder why there's that high of a level of detail when the terrain is missing key portions anyway: the school sits at a three-way intersection, but the roads to the right and left just cut off, leaving nothing but skybox...

I perform a double take.

Rather than exhibiting a nighttime texture, the skybox is plain gray.

"That's, uh... really weird," muses Sayori, still focused on the cutting-off of the road. "I remember really clearly there being road here... I'd always say goodbye to you, Natsuki... "

Natsuki nods, though she's clearly not totally recovered from the double layer of trauma she just had to go through, so she says nothing.

"I guess we could head back to my house. It's the closest now that the side roads are gone, and I don't think Monika even had a house before."

"That's right, unfortunately," confirms Monika.

"So that's our best bet, then. Let's go," I affirm, and we set off at a reasonable pace.

* * *

As we walk, I notice that MC's been rather quiet for a while. I fall back from my position at the front and walk alongside him.

"You alright? That was pretty bad, it's fine if you're not-"

"No, no, it's just..."

He sighs.

"I don't know. You'd call me crazy if I told you."

"I assure you, whatever you have to say, it's nowhere near as crazy as me even being here."

He laughs. "Yeah, I guess. Alright, here goes." He takes a deep breath.

"While we were in there, with... those _things_ , I-"

He cuts himself off. Evidently he's not sure about this.

"I felt... something oddly familiar."

"Well, it was using Yuri's form, and you know Yuri, yeah?"

"No, not like that. Separate from it. I-I can't really place it."

"...Look, we'll figure this out." I put my hand on his shoulder. "Weird stuff like this comes with the territory. And if it turns out to be meaningful, we'll be ready for it."

"...Alright. Hey-"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"No problem," I say, returning my hand to my side.

A while passes, and nothing is said. The solemn nature of our trip to Sayori's is oddly calming. The vice president herself is in front, guiding the rest of the group. Yuri was abandoned in her spot behind Sayori when I fell back, so I catch up with her again and hold her hand, our fingers interlocking. Monika comes next, along with Natsuki, whom she is comforting. MC is last, though he seems more confident for having talked to him.

I look up, and see a familiar sight.

"We're here!" exclaims Sayori excitedly.

* * *

As we enter, the lights are turned off. This is to be expected, and the resulting darkness is natural, though the artificial gray of the sky is a lot more jarring now that we're inside somewhere that is actively being lived in. Sayori turns them on, which does alleviate the issue a little. Monika takes charge along with her for the moment.

"We should find places for people to sleep, first. I doubt anyone but the six of us are here, so anywhere in the house is fair game."

My hand shoots up. "I call the couch."

"Oo-kay...? Sure. Ethan on the couch. Sayori, you can probably be in your room. We should probably at least double up, actually, just so everyone is accounted for."

Yuri practically pounces on me and raises her own hand. "I-I'm with him!~"

We stare at each other awkwardly for a moment. I break the gaze and scratch my back.

Sayori calmly hugs MC from behind. He hadn't been paying attention previously, so he calls out in surprise. "GAH- Oh, y-yeah."

Natsuki glances at Monika for a moment, then looks away, hoping not to have been noticed.

"...guess that leaves me with Natsuki, then!" the president proclaims cheerfully.

" _Dammit_ ," Natsuki whispers to herself, and she looks up, rolling her eyes. "Okay... But _only_ for safety reasons." She crosses her arms.

Sayori yawns loudly. "I'm tired. I don't know about you guys, but I think I'm gonna go up to sleep now. Cm'on, MC."

She ascends the stairs, and he follows obediently.

"I think I'll do the same. I feel like I was up until 3:00." I lay myself, controlled, onto the couch face-down. Within minutes, I've drifted off.

* * *

 _(⏭️ that one wind sound from undertale)_

I find myself somehow standing up on a metal platform. Certain portions of it are in a mesh pattern, so I can see down below myself into a dense, swirling fog.

I'm inside a roaring tornado.

The wind whips at my ears, along with the rest of my body. I pull myself inward in an attempt to maintain heat and not to fall over, the latter effort of which works surprisingly well.

Eventually, my gaze drifts upward.

 _(⏭️ Egg-Wyvern)_

It's HER.

 _[Redacted]_.

Somehow floating directly above me.

My back tenses up and my eyes instantly fill with tears, and they are as sharp as Yuri's knives. A thud of pain, just as back home when looking at her, now pounds my chest.

She stares down at me. The expression of judgement upon her face increases my anxiety a thousandfold, and the lack of anything but sclera in her eyes only adds to this. I want to buckle under the stress, I want to show her that this is hurting me, I want to hurt her in return, I want to stop feeling these things, I don't want to see her.

 _This can't be real. It isn't real. It's... not._

She extends a finger, opening her mouth to speak.

 ** _"You."_**

The voice echoes somehow, despite the wind. I can't do it anymore. With a coughing sob, I fall to the ground on one knee, already defeated.

I grit my teeth and force myself to look up. She descends threateningly, slowly, to the platform. ** _"I've been waiting for you."_**

Too close. Too much. Nausea is thrown into the mix of already incapacitating emotions. I can barely see.

 ** _"You're going to pay for what you did."_**

The syllables reverberate into my bones, into the metal of the platform. The wind howls faster, and it becomes harder to keep my balance.

"I-i-it wasn-n-n't my intention, I s-s-swear," I manage to eek out between crazed sobs. "I just, I didn't kn-n-now. How to do it."

She raises her hands slightly. Wind swirls faster, her hair begins to flow. She lands on the platform and slowly walks toward me.

 ** _"Goodbye, Ethan."_**

Wind condenses around her hands as she raises them, preparing to strike my defenseless body.

 _Whap._

 _Thud._

The sound of flesh being met with something harder.

I look up. It's Yuri, wielding a knife, which apparently intercepted [Redacted]'s intended target, as her hand is now embedded in the blade.

The purple-haired girl looks back. Her pupils are shrunken, and she is exhibiting a strange purple aura. Despite this, she seems quite herself, barring the sudden bravery. "You alright?"

I stand up. "No, but I'll make do."

[Redacted]'s wound shifts. It darkens into shadow, destroying the flesh beneath and leaving only skin, which is ripped to pieces by the howling wind. Those pieces disperse into the tornado, which begins to darken and speed up. A cackle in a very different voice than before rings out loud enough for us to hear, and the reverb is gone. I instinctively expect to have to fight, and stand at Yuri's back in response.

This isn't just my mind creating some sick dream. It's something else. Something worse. I can feel it.

Yuri takes my hand with one of her own and weilds the knife in her other. She sighs, as if she is familiar with this. I check for my multitool and find it, pulling out the knife tool, though it is much shorter.

The whirlwind accelerates. Faster and faster it swirls, until the platform becomes unstable and is ripped to shreds beneath our feet.

But we don't fall.

It doesn't seem to be for any logical reason, but it doesn't cause Yuri any trouble, so I don't question it.

All at once, projectiles begin to fly from the walls of the tornado into us. I frantically dodge and block in perfect unison with Yuri.

When the wave of debris ends, the... _thing_ that was previously [Redacted] only laughs, but says nothing.

Suddenly, the whirlwind dies down, revealing a blank white sky. Yuri quickly spins me around and holds my hands in hers. "See you soon, love." As she embraces me, the light takes her, then me.

* * *

 _(⏭️ Accordion Song)_

My eyes snap open. For a brief moment, my mind is devoid of any specific thought.

The space around me is unfamiliar. It takes a second for me to come to the realization.

 _Right. We're at Sayori's._

Sleeping on the couch hasn't done wonders for my comfort, and I feel somewhat jostled as a result of my sleep position, which hadn't been the most optimal.

Then I remember what just happened.

Instantly my eyes glass up. That was horrifying. I'm going to have to suppress that for months.

Only after this crosses my mind do I notice the extra weight on my body. I lift my neck and find that extra weight to belong to Yuri, just beginning to awaken herself.

I throw my arms around her as soon as she sits up while awakening. A small tensing of her body is followed by a returning of my gesture, though she's more effective than I am due to her positional advantage.

She pulls out of the hug and puts her hands on my shoulders. "It seemed like you have a lot on your mind," she says, a concerned look on her face. "Do you need to talk about it?"

I shake my head. "I've suppressed that for a long enough time that it doesn't bother me anymore," I answer, though it's a bit of an exaggeration. "This... was something else."

"You're right. I did get an eerie feeling of familiarity in there..."

She stares off. A moment passes, then she speaks again. "The sky... it hasn't changed since last night."

I follow her line of sight out the window. "...you're right. Welp. There goes my sleep schedule."

Yuri's laugh has always been a harmonious one, if a bit quiet. I can't help but do so along with her, and when it ends I hold her hand and rest my head on hers.

"You know, I haven't even been here very long, and yet I've never clicked so perfectly with anyone before."

"Ah, well. You're great too, y'know."

"You think so?"

"Yeah."

"Wow, that's, I... Thank you."

"Anything for you."

We continue to have this kind of idle affectionate talk for a few minutes. At some point I check my watch. 3:09 AM.

"Dang, did I really wake up that early?"

"Oh, wow. Alright, let's try to get some more sleep."

"Okay."

We fall into a perfect dreamless slumber.

And everything was lovely once again.


	6. Return to Normalcy

**A bit of a shorter one this time. Got all writers-blocked up lol. This was supposed to be way longer but I lost my motivation and had no idea how to write the next part, so I'm releasing it now**

* * *

(▶️ Quiet Water)

Pressure, at my side. Concentrated on one spot, firm yet gentle.

I've been poked.

Slowly, my eyes open. I'm greeted by Monika's face. "Hey," she says.

I raise a hand from my sleeping position. "Morning," I grumble. "'s up?"

"There's... something you need to see outside."

I sigh. "Alright."

I push off the couch with my arms, careful not to wake Yuri, who is still sleeping. Checking my watch, I see that it's 5:00 in the morning. I follow Monika outside.

The sky is still the dull, default gray it has been ever since we returned, but something's immediately different about it. Five seconds after we come out, it flashes slightly brighter.

"...okay, so it does that. Cool."

Monika shakes her head. "No, it's not just that. Look."

She points at the road, the way we came last night. It cuts off a couple houses down, just like it did outside the school.

"...Draw distance, maybe?"

She shakes her head and starts walking towards it. I follow her and find that she's right. It's not draw distance. There really is closer cutoff.

And it's advancing, very slowly.

 _Shit._

"We're clearly going to need to find a way out of here," she says. "I'd been hoping that could be done without a deadline, but it seems like we can't anymore."

I nod in agreement. "...But how do you plan to do it?"

She taps her head with a pen. "With hacks, of course."

* * *

(⏭️ Prison Island)

The door opens, and Monika flicks the light on. "Stay here, I'm getting the others."

She passes Natsuki on the way up, who is barely awake. "Morning." The other girl responds with a raised hand, not having the energy to care enough for anything more elaborate. She reaches the landing and heads directly for the kitchen, beginning to rummage around, presumably for ingredients.

I figure now is probably a good time to wake up Yuri. Making my way over to her, I use the same technique as Monika did on me. Her eyes slowly open.

I feel a smile forming on my face. "Morning."

She matches it. Oddly, she attempts to reach for a pair of glasses, then reacts in a way that can only be described as an "oh, right". She sits up and momentarily embraces me, then shifts her weight onto her legs and stretches.

"Good morning, Natsuki."

Natsuki, on her knees behind the kitchen's island, raises her hand above it with two fingers extended. Yuri chuckles.

Monika returns down the stairs with Sayori and MC, the former of whom looks quite a bit more awake than anyone else does, even the club president herself, the very antithesis of her behavior in-game. MC, meanwhile, appears similar to Natsuki in this sense.

"Morning, guys!" she exclaims joyfully.

"Hey, Say," I respond. She giggles.

Monika pulls her aside. "You have a computer in your house?"

Sayori nods. "I... think so. Follow me." She leads the president into another room past the stairs, turning on lights along the way.

I greet MC, since he's the only one left. "Hey, you good? You've been awfully quiet."

He shakes himself awake, startled. "Huh? No, I'm just tired, is all." He stretches. "Sayori talked my ear off last night, so I barely slept."

We both laugh a little at that.

This is nice, just waking up and not worrying about anything. Sure, there is the looking threat of our world potentially caving in on us, and I'm not quite sure how to get back to my family and friends, but I have to admit that the atmosphere here is just so much less stressful than normal.

...It's a little unnatural, even.

Yuri has gone over to the kitchen to help Natsuki make breakfast, and it looks like the latter is quite a bit more appreciative of it than would have been expected of her. Yuri's taller figure is certainly quite the aid in getting at higher shelves, and she does seem to know what would fit the meal, checking for things like fresh fruit and syrup. Meanwhile, Natsuki is vigorously whisking ingredients in a large, metal bowl.

Monika returns with Sayori in tow, the former carrying a laptop. She places it on the table and turns it on, immediately reducing the brightness so as not to conflict with the relative darkness in the surrounding area. She frantically taps the Shift key. "Come on, come on..."

Sayori places a hand on her shoulder. "Monika, it's alright. You said it was advancing slowly, I don't think there's much cause for-"

"Slowly, yes, but _advancing_ ," snaps Monika. "If we don't do something about it, it'll still reach all of us, and resting on our laurels is only going to put us at a disadvantage." The computer screen flares up with the login menu. "Could you, uh."

"Oh, yeah." Sayori takes a moment to type a password, and the desktop appears. Monika immediately takes her position back and begins to open more and more programs.

Just then, Natsuki arrives with a plate of pancakes stacked at least twenty high, though the stack is structurally sound with more at the bottom than the top. Yuri provides the extras - condiments, if you will - and utensils. The cook speaks for the first time today. "Alright, who wants pancakes?"

Sayori jumps from Monika's side. "Ooh! Yes!" MC, Yuri, and I all agree, though slightly less agressively.

Monika ignores it.

Natsuki slides Sayori a plate first, then Yuri. I take one for myself as she's doing this, and she seems indifferent, as there are still plenty left. She makes one for Monika, then serves herself a stack at least twice as high as the ones she gave Yuri and Sayori.

I pour the maple syrup over my food. It's not as thick as the "breakfast syrup" you can buy in stores, but it's thicker than water. It runs all over the golden cakes, beginning to seep into them, and the sugar and starch fuse into a simply delectable dish.

Hehe, dig in!

I begin to cut the pancakes with my fork, eating the first slice. The smell before was a highly accurate indicator of how it would taste. They're buttery and sweet, the texture is just rough enough, and I love them. Almost-

Nah, on second thought, I probably would take Yuri over these.

I speak around the chewed-up cake in my mouth. "Nat, these are _great!_ "

Glancing at her as I say it, I almost choke in laughter. She's folded an entire half of the top one and shoved it in her mouth, barely able to chew.

"Um, Natsuki, that probably isn't the best idea-" Yuri says, interrupting herself by covering her mouth to suppress a laugh herself.

Sayori, though, cannot. She bursts out into infectious giggling, which Yuri eventually catches, causing me to break out into a fit of sharp exhales that only somewhat resemble laughter. By this point, Natsuki has stopped chewing and swallowed some of it. She simply sits, head raised, eyes squinting, developing joyful tears.

MC looks up from his plate with a smile forming, though he evidently doesn't know why. "What are we laughing about...?"

Monika ignores it.

In a few minutes, most of us has finished our stacks. Yuri declines to have any more, and MC does the same. I take only one more. Even Monika's is finished, and she'd been ignoring everyone.

The exception is Sayori.

Despite the enthusiasm she showed before, she's barely touched her plate.

I voice concern about this. "Sayori, what's up? Not hungry?"

"Oh, ehe... Yeah, I guess so..."

MC, callous as he is, does notice this to be somewhat strange. "But... you were the first one to say you wanted some..."

I cut him off. "Look, it's fine. Not important right now. Monika, is there anything we can do to help?"

Without looking up, she says, "I'm trying to get admin on this so we can control the world via a console, which I can't do myself for some reason. In the meantime it would probably be useful to find out how much time we have left, specifically."

"Good, so how would we go about that?"

"Sayori, do you have a tape measure?"

"I think so... I'll go look." She exits through the front door, and a second later I hear the door to her garage open.

"Right, so. Yuri, when she gets back, you can measure from one end of the road to the other, and then we'll wait exactly 24 hours, when you can take another measurement."

"I can do that, yes. How can the others contribute?"

"Well, I'm hoping this can eventually end in us breaking out of this world. Ethan's familiar with it, so why doesn't he start to describe it? Just to prepare everyone, you know?"

"Um... That may not be the best idea, but okay..."

"Great! Let's get to work, then."

(⏭️ Iron Jungle)

Sayori returns with the measuring device, and Yuri makes for it, going outside with it. Monika returns to the laptop again. Curious, I follow her.

"What're you doing, specifically?"

She's got a command prompt window open, and a file explorer one. "I'm looking for our files. Just to do some preliminary searching."

I take a closer look at the filesystem. Each file has a .meta file with the same name...

"Hey, that looks like Unity!"

"Hm?"

"It's a game engine from the outer world. I guess whatever simulation we're in is built around it... A bit too realistic for what I've experienced, but it might just be programming prowess..."

I pull up a chair and sit down next to her. "Let me see this."

I open another file explorer window and navigate to what looks like the root directory of the game. A folder called "scenes" contains some .unity files, and they're set to open in the editor, so I double click one.

It's MC's mind.

Specifically, that dark, liquidy representation of it.

"...the hell?" I mutter. Monika hears this. "What is it?"

"This was the inside of MC's mind when I was sharing a body with him. Why is it a Unity scene on this computer?"

"That... is really weird, yeah..."

I look at the scene hierarchy. There are three **PlayerSpawn** prefabs. Selecting one slows down the computer by an absurd amount, and I attempt to deselect as soon as it will let me.

"...Whoa. This thing is huge."

I click the dropdown arrow to the right of the text on the prefab. It takes a moment to load everything, and once it does there are at least five hundred entries.

One of these catches my eye. It says "DebugMode", and it appears to be disabled by default.

"Okay, that looks like what you want." I point to it. "We're already running on something else, unfortunately. I don't think this editor is going to be any help."

Monika nods. "This somehow has a memory viewer and editor. If I can just find the computer we're running on, I might be able to enable the debug mode for us."

"That works, then. Good luck."

She goes back to it.

That's a bit unsettling. Character models for MC, Jun, and (I shudder to think of this) myself weren't loaded, so I didn't see them there, but just confirming this is a game someone can edit on a whim would start to get to anyone.

I wonder who could have made this and why they would want _me_ in it. And how can anything this realistic be made in _Unity_ , of all programs?

I try not to think about it and instead direct my mind toward relaying the real world to everyone else. Immediately, tears begin to form. I've been internally avoiding this for as long as I was here. For the moment, even when I was acknowledging things were different, I wasn't fully aware of what they were different from. Why? Was I suppressing it? The transition woke me up, so...

(⏹)

Wait.

Wasn't Sayori awake before us? She looked like she was. And she wasn't eating...

Fuck. Alright, let's do it.

I go upstairs to Sayori's room, where she'd gone after giving Yuri the tape measure. I can't help but notice this is eerily familiar to do.

I knock. "Sayori?"

There's no answer.

Dammit, dammit, _dammit._

I open the door firmly and with precision, so as to avoid narrative similarity with the original game, thinking that might change the outcome.

(⏭️ Memory 2)

It doesn't matter, because Sayori is sitting on her bed, head in hands.

Slightly more relaxed but still concerned, I sit down next to her on the bed, placing my hand on her back.

"Hey."

She sniffles and puts her hands down. "Hi..."

"Look, we didn't really talk much about this before. I'm worried about you. I know this was a lot, the whole thing with that place, and Yuri..."

She nods. Her eyes are red, and sunken from lack of sleep, confirming my earlier suspicions.

"Not enough sleep?"

"-Yeah." She barely breathes the word out. "I... I can't stop thinking about it. I know it wasn't really her, but it felt like we were hurting Yuri... or, or we weren't doing enough to help her."

She sniffles. Her eyes look glassy, and the blue in them seems somewhat duller.

"And-"

"Shhh." I wrap my arm around her back, my hand landing on her far shoulder. Her facial expression is forced empty. "You don't have to say it..."

"...Well, everything." She forcefully closes her eyes for a moment in an attempt to hold back tears. "I mean, are we even real?"

I have nothing to say to this. I don't know. I don't even know if I'm real, technically.

"And... Monika said the world is closing in on us. What happens if we don't find a way out by then?"

I just hold her tighter.

"Sayori," I let out after a moment. "We will get through this. I guarantee you that. You can talk to me. You can talk to MC, or anyone else here. We're all your friends, and we all love you."

She inhales shakily. "Thank you."

"And once we get out, we're going to get you to see a therapist. I know you already needed help before all of this, and I know that can help you."

For a moment, everything is still.

Then I hear a voice ring out from downstairs.

" _YES!_ "

The voice is Monika's.

Sayori and I look at each other, then rush down the stairs.

* * *

(⏭️ Pit of 100 Trials)

It has been about a week since Monika got into the host computer. She made the required memory edit to reactivate debug mode, and she is now back in business. Though she can't stop the expansion, she has reduced its speed to the lowest possible, and it now only advances a few micrometers per day.

She has begun taking breaks, now that she no longer actually requires a computer for the same kind of control she had in the original game. Natsuki has tended to eat the most, and she seems to be developing a bit more color in her skin, which while I do find a somewhat odd detail to be put in this kind of simulation, I'm glad for it nonetheless.

 _'Simulation', huh?_

 _Have I already begun thinking like that?_

I shudder at the thought.

The rest of us haven't been doing much, since a lot of the work is just what Monika's been doing on the laptop. I don't know what she's still looking for, but it's starting to worry me now. She has admin already, so she should be able to see all the assets in the game, just like before.

...Are we just trapped here?

Sayori taps my shoulder, breaking me out of this small trance. "Heyyy~"

"Oh, hi, Say, what's up?"

"So, um, I was thinking of something, and I wanted to ask you before I talk to Monika."

"Okay, what is it?"

"Well... I wanted to have another club meeting! Y'know, for old times' sake?"

I lower my head slightly.

A literature club meeting, huh?

Well, I've technically never been to one myself. I also wasn't fond of the formal vibe I was getting from the game and from the one I tagged along with MC in... it does sound like fun, though...

"Sure, go ahead, ask her."

She beams.


End file.
